The mixed spin-1 and spin-1/2 Heisenberg octahedral chain with regularly alternating monomeric spin-1 sites and square-plaquette spin-1/2 sites is investigated using variational technique, localized-magnon approach, exact diagonalization (ED) and density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method. The investigated model has in a magnetic field an extraordinarily rich ground-state phase diagram, which includes the uniform and cluster-based Haldane phases, two ferrimagnetic phases of Lieb-Mattis type, two quantum spin liquids and two bound magnon crystals in addition to the fully polarized ferromagnetic phase. The lowest-energy eigenstates in a highly-frustrated parameter region belong to flat bands and hence, low-temperature thermodynamics above the bound magnon-crystal ground states can be satisfactorily described within the localized-magnon approach. The variational method provides an exact evidence for the magnon-crystal phase with a character of the monomer-tetramer ground state at zero field, while another magnon-crystal phase with a single bound magnon at each square plaquette is found in a high-field region. A diversity of quantum ground states gives rise to manifold zero-temperature magnetization curves, which may involve up to four wide intermediate plateaus at zero, one-sixth, one-third and two-thirds of the saturation magnetization, two quantum spin-liquid regions and two tiny plateaus at one-ninth and one-twelfth of the saturation magnetization corresponding to the fragmentized cluster-based Haldane phases.
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