Natalia Chepiga, Frédéric Michaud, Frédéric Mila
We show that spin-S ladders undergo, for antiferromagnetic rung coupling, a series of 4S topological phase transitions when the ratio of the leg to rung coupling changes from strongly antiferromagnetic to strongly ferromagnetic. These phase transitions are characterized by a change of Berry phase on the rungs, and, with appropriate boundary conditions, by the appearance and disappearance of edge states without the bulk gap ever closing. The various phases can be distinguished by the number of valence bond singlets on the rungs, which decreases from 2S for strong rung coupling to 0 for dominant leg coupling. In particular, the isotropic spin-3/2 ladder with equal leg and rung coupling is explicitly shown to be in the valence bond solid phase with one singlet per bond.
View original:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.0392
No comments:
Post a Comment