Tom Kennedy

Valence bond ground states in isotropic quantum antiferromagnets

Haldane predicted that the isotropic quantum Heisenberg spin chain is in a “massive” phase if the spin is integral. The first rigorous example of an isotropic model in such a phase is presented. The Hamiltonian has an exactSO(3) symmetry and is translationally invariant, but we prove the model has a unique ground state, a gap in the spectrum of the Hamiltonian immediately above the ground state and exponential decay of the correlation functions in the ground state. Models in two and higher dimension which are expected to have the same properties are also presented. For these models we construct an exact ground state, and for some of them we prove that the two-point function decays exponentially in this ground state. In all these models exact ground states are constructed by using valence bonds.

An itinerant electron model with crystalline or magnetic long range order

A quantum mechanical lattice model of fermionic electrons interacting with infinitely massive nuclei is considered. (It can be viewed as a modified Hubbard model in which the spin-up electrons are not allowed to hop.) The electron-nucleus potential is “on-site” only. Neither this potential alone nor the kinetic energy alone can produce long range order. Thus, if long range order exists in this model it must come from an exchange mechanism. N, the electron plus nucleus number, is taken to be less than or equal to the number of lattice sites. We prove the following: (i) For all dimensions, d, the ground state has long range order; in fact it is a perfect crystal with spacing √2 times the lattice spacing. A gap in the ground state energy always exists at the half-filled band point (N = number of lattice sites). (ii) For small, positive temperature, T, the ordering persists when d ⩾ 2. If T is large there is no long range order and there is exponential clustering of all correlation functions.

Mayer expansions and the Hamilton-Jacobi equation

We review the derivation of Wilsons differential equation in (infinitely) many variables, which describes the infinitesimal change in an effective potential of a statistical mechanical model or quantum field theory when an infinitesimal “integration out” is performed. We show that this equation can be solved for short times by a very elementary method when the initial data are bounded and analytic. The resulting series solutions are generalizations of the Mayer expansion in statistical mechanics. The differential equation approach gives a remarkable identity for “connected parts” and precise estimates which include criteria for convergence of iterated Mayer expansions. Applications include the Yukawa gas in two dimensions past theΒ=4π threshold and another derivation of some earlier results of Göpfert and Mack.

Hidden symmetry breaking and the Haldane phase in

We study the phase diagram ofS=1 antiferromagnetic chains with particular emphasis on the Haldane phase. The hidden symmetry breaking measured by the string order parameter of den Nijs and Rommelse can be transformed into an explicit breaking of aZ2×Z2 symmetry by a nonlocal unitary transformation of the chain. For a particular class of Hamiltonians which includes the usual Heisenberg Hamiltonian, we prove that the usual Néel order parameter is always less than or equal to the string order parameter. We give a general treatment of rigorous perturbation theory for the ground state of quantum spin systems which are small perturbations of diagonal Hamiltonians. We then extend this rigorous perturbation theory to a class of “diagonally dominant” Hamiltonians. Using this theory we prove the existence of the Haldane phase in an open subset of the parameter space of a particular class of Hamiltonians by showing that the string order parameter does not vanish and the hiddenZ2×Z2 symmetry is completely broken. While this open subset does not include the usual Heisenberg Hamiltonian, it does include models other than VBS models.

S=1

The author numerically computes the two lowest eigenvalues of finite length spin-1 chains with the Hamiltonian H= Sigma i(Si.Si+1- beta (Si.Si+1)2) and open boundary conditions. For a range of beta , including the value 0, he finds that the difference of the two eigenvalues decays exponentially with the length of the chain. This exponential decay provides further evidence that these spin chains are in a massive phase as first predicted by Haldane (1982). The correlation length xi of the chain can be estimated using this exponential decay. He finds estimates of xi for the Heisenberg chain ( beta =0) that range from 6.7 to 7.8 depending on how one extrapolates to infinite length.

quantum spin chains

The methods of Dyson, Lieb, and Simon are extended to prove the existence of Néel order in the ground state of the 3D spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the cubic lattice. We also consider the spin-1/2 antiferromagnet on the cubic lattice with the coupling in one of the three lattice directions taken to ber times its value in the other two lattice directions. We prove the existence of Néel order for 0.16⩽r⩽1. For the 2D spin-1/2 model we give a series of inequalities which involve the two-point function only at short distances and each of which would by itself imply Néel order.

Exact diagonalisations of open spin-1 chains

The pivot algorithm is a Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm for simulating the self-avoiding walk. At each iteration a pivot which produces a global change in the walk is proposed. If the resulting walk is self-avoiding, the new walk is accepted; otherwise, it is rejected. Past implementations of the algorithm required a time O(N) per accepted pivot, where N is the number of steps in the walk. We show how to implement the algorithm so that the time required per accepted pivot is O(Nq) with q<1. We estimate that q is less than 0.57 in two dimensions, and less than 0.85 in three dimensions. Corrections to the O(Nq) make an accurate estimate of q impossible. They also imply that the asymptotic behavior of O(Nq) cannot be seen for walk lengths which can be simulated. In simulations the effective q is around 0.7 in two dimensions and 0.9 in three dimensions. Comparisons with simulations that use the standard implementation of the pivot algorithm using a hash table indicate that our implementation is faster by as much as a factor of 80 in two dimensions and as much as a factor of 7 in three dimensions. Our method does not require the use of a hash table and should also be applicable to the pivot algorithm for off-lattice models.

Existence of Néel order in some spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnets

The conjecture that the scaling limit of the two-dimensional self-avoiding walk (SAW) in a half plane is given by the stochastic Loewner evolution (SLE) with kappa = 8/3 leads to explicit predictions about the SAW. A remarkable feature of these predictions is that they yield not just critical exponents but also probability distributions for certain random variables associated with the self-avoiding walk. We test two of these predictions with Monte Carlo simulations and find excellent agreement, thus providing numerical support to the conjecture that the scaling limit of the SAW is SLE(8/3).

A Faster Implementation of the Pivot Algorithm for Self-Avoiding Walks

AbstractSimulations of the two-dimensional self-avoiding walk (SAW) are performed in a half-plane and a cut-plane (the complex plane with the positive real axis removed) using the pivot algorithm. We test the conjecture of Lawler, Schramm, and Werner that the scaling limit of the two-dimensional SAW is given by Schramms stochastic Loewner evolution (SLE). The agreement is found to be excellent. The simulations also test the conformal invariance of the SAW since conformal invariance implies that if we map infinite length walks in the cut-plane into the half plane using the conformal map