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Bruno Nachtergaele

Publications and source records attributed to Bruno Nachtergaele.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources
arXiv2002

The Ferromagnetic Heisenberg XXZ chain in a pinning field

We investigate the effect of a magnetic field supported at a single lattice site on the low-energy spectrum of the ferromagnetic Heisenberg XXZ chain. Such fields, caused by impurities, can modify the low-energy spectrum significantly by pinning certain excitations, such as kink and droplet states. We distinguish between different boundary conditions (or sectors), the direction and also the strength of the magnetic field. E.g., with a magnetic field in the z-direction applied at the origin and ++ boundary conditions, there is a critical field strength B_c (which depends on the anisotropy of the Hamiltonian and the spin value) with the following properties: for B < B_c there is a unique ground state with a gap, at the critical value, B_c, there are infinitely many (droplet) ground states with gapless excitations, and for B>B_c there is again a unique ground state but now belonging to the continuous spectrum. In contrast, any magnetic field with a non-vanishing component in the xy-plane yields a unique ground state, which, depending on the boundary conditions, is either an (anti)kink, or an (anti)droplet state. For such fields, i.e., not aligned with the z-axis, excitations always have a gap and we obtain a rigorous lower bound for that gap.

math-ph↗
arXiv2002

The spectral gap for the ferromagnetic spin-J XXZ chain

We investigate the spectrum above the kink ground states of the spin J ferromagnetic XXZ chain. Our main theorem is that there is a non-vanishing gap above all ground states of this model for all values of J. Using a variety of methods, we obtain additional information about the magnitude of this gap, about its behavior for large Δ, about its overall behavior as a function of Δand its dependence on the ground state, about the scaling of the gap and the structure of the low-lying spectrum for large J, and about the existence of isolated eigenvalues in the excitation spectrum. By combining information obtained by perturbation theory, numerical, and asymptotic analysis we arrive at a number of interesting conjectures. The proof of the main theorem, as well as some of the numerical results, rely on a comparison result with a Solid-on-Solid (SOS) approximation. This SOS model itself raises interesting questions in combinatorics, and we believe it will prove useful in the study of interfaces in the XXZ model in higher dimensions.

math-ph↗
arXiv2002

The equilibrium states for a model with two kinds of Bose condensation

We study the equilibrium Gibbs states for a Boson gas model, defined by Bru and Zagrebnov, which has two phase transitions of the Bose condensation type. The two phase transitions correspond to two distinct mechanisms by which these condensations can occur. The first (non-conventional) Bose condensation is mediated by a zero-mode interaction term in the Hamiltonian. The second is a transition due to saturation quite similar to the conventional Bose-Einstein (BE) condensation in the ideal Bose gas. Due to repulsive interaction in non-zero modes the model manifests a generalized type III, i.e., non-extensive BE condensation. Our main result is that, as in the ideal Bose gas, the conventional condensation is accompanied by a loss of strong equivalence of the canonical and grand canonical ensembles whereas the non-conventional one, due to the interaction, does not break the equivalence of ensembles. It is also interesting to note that the type of (generalized) condensate, I, II, or III (in the terminology of van den Berg, Lewis and Pule), has no effect on the equivalence of ensembles. These results are proved by computing the generating functional of the cyclic representation of the Canonical Commutation Relation (CCR) for the corresponding equilibrium Gibbs states.

math-ph↗
arXiv2000

Droplet States in the XXZ Heisenberg Chain

We consider the ground states of the ferromagnetic XXZ chain with spin up boundary conditions in sectors with a fixed number of down spins. This forces the existence of a droplet of down spins in the system. We find the exact energy and the states that describe these droplets in the limit of an infinite number of down spins. We prove that there is a gap in the spectrum above the droplet states. As the XXZ Hamiltonian has a gap above the fully magnetized ground states as well, this means that the droplet states (for sufficiently large droplets) form an isolated band. The width of this band tends to zero in the limit of infinitely large droplets. We also prove the analogous results for finite chains with periodic boundary conditions and for the infinite chain.

math-ph↗
arXiv2000

Interfaces and droplets in quantum lattice models

This paper is a short review of recent results on interface states in the Falicov-Kimball model and the ferromagnetic XXZ Heisenberg model. More specifically, we discuss the following topics: 1) The existence of interfaces in quantum lattice models that can be considered as perturbations of classical models. 2) The rigidity of the 111 interface in the three-dimensional Falicov-Kimball model at sufficiently low temperatures. 3) The low-lying excitations and the scaling of the gap in the 111 interface ground state in the ferromagnetic XXZ Heisenberg model in three dimensions. 4) The existence of droplet states in the XXZ chain and their properties.

math-ph↗
arXiv1999

Rigidity of interfaces in the Falicov-Kimball model

We analyze the thermodynamic properties of interfaces in the three-dimensional Falicov Kimball model, which can be viewed as a primitive quantum lattice model of crystalline matter. In the strong coupling limit, the ionic subsystem of this model is governed by the Hamiltonian of an effective classical spin model whose leading part is the Ising Hamiltonian. We prove that the 100 interface in this model, at half-filling, is rigid, as in the three-dimensional Ising model. However, despite the above similarities with the Ising model, the thermodynamic properties of its 111 interface are very different. We prove that even though this interface is expected to be unstable for the Ising model, it is stable for the Falicov Kimball model at sufficiently low temperatures. This rigidity results from a phenomenon of "ground state selection" and is a consequence of the Fermi statistics of the electrons in the model.

math-ph↗
arXiv1999

Finite-volume excitations of the 111 interface in the quantum XXZ model

We show that the ground states of the three-dimensional XXZ Heisenberg ferromagnet with a 111 interface have excitations localized in a subvolume of linear size R with energies bounded by O(1/R^2). As part of the proof we show the equivalence of ensembles for the 111 interface states in the following sense: In the thermodynamic limit the states with fixed magnetization yield the same expectation values for gauge invariant local observables as a suitable grand canonical state with fluctuating magnetization. Here, gauge invariant means commuting with the total third component of the spin, which is a conserved quantity of the Hamiltonian. As a corollary of equivalence of ensembles we also prove the convergence of the thermodynamic limit of sequences of canonical states (i.e., with fixed magnetization).

math-ph↗
arXiv1999

Path Integral Representation for Interface States of the Anisotropic Heisenberg Model

We develop a geometric representation for the ground state of the spin-1/2 quantum XXZ ferromagnetic chain in terms of suitably weighted random walks in a two-dimensional lattice. The path integral model so obtained admits a genuine classical statistical mechanics interpretation with a translation invariant Hamiltonian. This new representation is used to study the interface ground states of the XXZ model. We prove that the probability of having a number of down spins in the up phase decays exponentially with the sum of their distances to the interface plus the square of the number of down spins. As an application of this bound, we prove that the total third component of the spin in a large interval of even length centered on the interface does not fluctuate, i.e., has zero variance. We also show how to construct a path integral representation in higher dimensions and obtain a reduction formula for the partition functions in two dimensions in terms of the partition function of the one-dimensional model.

math-ph↗
arXiv1998

The complete set of ground states of the ferromagnetic XXZ chains

We show that the well-known translation invariant ground states and the recently discovered kink and antikink ground states are the complete set of pure infinite-volume ground states (in the sense of local stability) of the spin-S ferromagnetic XXZ chains with Hamiltonian H=-sum_x [ S^1_x S^1_{x+1} + S^2_x S^2_{x+1} + Delta S^3_x S^3_{x+1} ], for all Delta >1, and all S=1/2,1,3/2,.... For the isotropic model (Delta =1) we show that all ground states are translation invariant. For the proof of these statements we propose a strategy for demonstrating completeness of the list of the pure infinite-volume ground states of a quantum many-body system, of which the present results for the XXX and XXZ chains can be seen as an example. The result for Delta>1 can also be proved by an easy extension to general $S$ of the method used in [T. Matsui, Lett. Math. Phys. 37 (1996) 397] for the spin-1/2 ferromagnetic XXZ chain with $Δ>1$. However, our proof is different and does not rely on the existence of a spectral gap. In particular, it also works to prove absence of non-translationally invariant ground states for the isotropic chains (Delta=1), which have a gapless excitation spectrum. Our results show that, while any small amount of the anisotropy is enough to stabilize the domain walls against the quantum fluctuations, no boundary condition exists that would stabilize a domain wall in the isotropic model (Delta=1).

cond-mat.stat-mech↗
arXiv1996

Quantum logic as a sum over classical logic gates

It is shown that certain natural quantum logic gates, {\it i.e.} unitary time evolution matrices for spin-\frac{1}{2} quantum spins, can be represented as sums, with appropriate phases, over classical logic gates, in a direct analogy with the Feynman path integral representation of quantum mechanics. On the other hand, it is shown that a natural quantum gate obtained by analytically continuing the transfer matrix of the anisotropic nearest-neighbour Ising model to imaginary time, does not admit such a representation.

quant-ph↗
arXiv1996

Quasi-state decompositions for quantum spin systems

I discuss the concept of quasi-state decompositions for ground states and equilibrium states of quantum spin systems. Some recent results on the ground states of a class of one-dimensional quantum spin models are summarized and new work in progress is presented. I also outline some challenging open problems and conjectures.

cond-mat↗
arXiv1996

On the flux phase conjecture at half-filling: an improved proof

We present a simplification of Lieb's proof of the flux phase conjecture for interacting fermion systems -- such as the Hubbard model --, at half filling on a general class of graphs. The main ingredient is a procedure which transforms a class of fermionic Hamiltonians into reflection positive form. The method can also be applied to other problems, which we briefly illustrate with two examples concerning the $t-V$ model and an extended Falicov-Kimball model.

cond-mat↗
arXiv1995

The spectral gap of the ferromagnetic XXZ chain

We prove that the spectral gap of the spin-1/2 ferromagnetic XXZ chain with Hamiltonian $H=-\sum_x S^{(1)}_xS^{(1)}_{x+1}+S^{(2)}_xS^{(2)}_{x+1} +ΔS^{(3)}_xS^{(3)}_{x+1}$, is given by $Δ-1$ for all $Δ\geq 1$. This is the gap in the spectrum of the infinite chain in any of its ground states, the translation invariant ones as well as the kink ground states, which contain an interface between an {\it up} and a {\it down} region. In particular, this shows that the lowest magnon energy is not affected by the presence of a domain wall. This surprising fact is a consequence of the $SU_q(2)$ quantum group symmetry of the model.

cond-mat↗
arXiv1995

Bounds on the mass gap of the ferromagnetic XXZ chain

We prove rigorous lower and upper bounds for the mass gap of the ferromagnetic spin 1/2 XXZ chain. The two bounds coincide asymptotically in the Ising limit $Δ\to\infty$. Near the isotropic point, $Δ=1$, the estimates are good enough to determine the critical behaviour of the mass gap unambiguously. The derivation does not rely on exact solutions.

cond-mat↗
arXiv1994

The spectral gap for some spin chains with discrete symmetry breaking

We prove that for any finite set of generalized valence bond solid (GVBS) states of a quantum spin chain there exists a translation invariant finite-range Hamiltonian for which this set is the set of ground states. This result implies that there are GVBS models with arbitrary broken discrete symmetries that are described as combinations of lattice translations, lattice reflections, and local unitary or anti-unitary transformations. We also show that all GVBS models that satisfy some natural conditions have a spectral gap. The existence of a spectral gap is obtained by applying a simple and quite general strategy for proving lower bounds on the spectral gap of the generator of a classical or quantum spin dynamics. This general scheme is interesting in its own right and therefore, although the basic idea is not new, we present it in a system-independent setting. The results are illustrated with an number of examples.

cond-mat↗
arXiv1994

The Stability of the Peierls Instability for Ring-Shaped Molecules

We investigate the conventional tight-binding model of $L$ $π$-electrons on a ring-shaped mol\-e\-cule of $L$ atoms with nearest neighbor hopping. The hopping amplitudes, $t(w)$, depend on the atomic spacings, $w$, with an associated distortion energy $V(w)$. A Hubbard type on-site interaction as well as nearest-neighbor repulsive potentials can also be included. We prove that when $L=4k+2$ the minimum energy $E$ occurs either for equal spacing or for alternating spacings (dimerization); nothing more chaotic can occur. In particular this statement is true for the Peierls-Hubbard Hamiltonian which is the case of linear $t(w)$ and quadratic $V(w)$, i.e., $t(w)=t_0-αw$ and $V(w)=k(w-a)^2$, but our results hold for any choice of couplings or functions $t(w)$ and $V(w)$. When $L=4k$ we prove that more chaotic minima {\it can\/} occur, as we show in an explicit example, but the alternating state is always asymptotically exact in the limit $L\to\infty$. Our analysis suggests three interesting conjectures about how dimerization stabilizes for large systems. We also treat the spin-Peierls problem and prove that nothing more chaotic than dimerization occurs for $L=4k+2$ {\it and\/} $L=4k$.

cond-mat↗