Dimerized ground states in spin-S frustrated systems

We study a family of frustrated anti-ferromagnetic spin-$S$ systems with a fully dimerized ground state. This state can be exactly obtained without the need to include any additional three-body interaction in the model. The simplest members of the family can be used as a building block to generate more complex geometries like spin tubes with a fully dimerized ground state. After present some numerical results about the phase diagram of these systems, we show that the ground state is robust against the inclusion of weak disorder in the couplings as well as several kinds of perturbations, allowing to study some other interesting models as a perturbative expansion of the exact one. A discussion on how to determine the dimerization region in terms of quantum information estimators is also presented. Finally, we explore the relation of these results with a the case of the a 4-leg spin tube which recently was proposed as the model for the description of the compound Cu$_2$Cl$_4$D$_8$C$_4$SO$_2$, delimiting the region of the parameter space where this model presents dimerization in its ground state.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figure

Phase diagram study of a dimerized spin-S zig-zag ladder

The phase diagram of a frustrated spin-$S$ zig-zag ladder is studied through different numerical and analytical methods. We show that for arbitrary $S$, there is a family of Hamiltonians for which a fully-dimerized state is an exact ground state, being the Majumdar-Ghosh point a particular member of the family. We show that the system presents a transition between a dimerized phase to a N\'eel-like phase for $S=1/2$, and spiral phases can appear for large $S$. The phase diagram is characterized by means of a generalization of the usual Mean Field Approximation (MFA). The novelty in the present implementation is to consider the strongest coupled sites as the unit cell. The gap and the excitation spectrum is analyzed through the Random Phase Approximation (RPA). Also, a perturbative treatment to obtain the critical points is discussed. Comparisons of the results with numerical methods like DMRG are also presented.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures. Some typos were corrected, and notation was clarifie

Kinetic-theory description of isoscalar dipole modes

A semiclassical model, based on a solution of the Vlasov equation for finite systems with moving-surface, is employed to study the isoscalar dipole modes in nuclei. It is shown that, by taking into account the surface degree of freedom, it is possible to obtain an exact treatment of the centre of mass motion. It is also shown that a method often used to subtract the spurious strength in RPA calculations does not always give the correct result. An alternative analytical formula for the intrinsic strength function is derived in a simple confined-Fermi-gas model. In this model the intrinsic isoscalar dipole strength displays essentially a two-resonance structure, hence there are two relevant modes. The interaction between nucleons couples these two modes and changes the compressibility of the system. The evolution of the strength profile is then studied as a function of the compressibility of the nuclear fluid. Comparison with available data favours values of the incompressibility parameter of nuclear matter smaller than those suggested by the analysis of the monopole ``breathing'' mode.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, revised version to be published in Nucl. Phys.

Unified semiclassical approach to isoscalar collective modes in heavy nuclei

A semiclassical model based on the solution of the Vlasov equation for finite systems with a sharp moving surface has been used to study the isoscalar quadrupole and octupole collective modes in heavy spherical nuclei. Within this model, a unified description of both low-energy surface modes and higher-energy giant resonances has been achieved by introducing a coupling between surface vibrations and the motion of single nucleons. Analytical expressions for the collective response functions of different multipolarity can be derived by using a separable approximation for the residual interaction between nucleons. The response functions obtained in this way give a good qualitative description of the quadrupole and octupole response in heavy nuclei. Although shell effects are not explicitly included in the theory, our semiclassical response functions are very similar to the quantum ones. This happens because of the well known close relation between classical trajectories and shell structure. The role played by particular nucleon trajectories and their connection with various features of the nuclear response is displayed most clearly in the present approach, we discuss in some detail the damping of low-energy octupole vibrations and give an explicit expression showing that only nucleons moving on triangular orbits can contribute to this damping.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, Talk presented at the 8th International Spring Seminar on Nuclear Physics on Key Topics in Nuclear Structure, Paestum, Italy, May 23-27, 200

Generalized mean field description of entanglement in dimerized spin systems

We discuss a generalized self-consistent mean field (MF) treatment, based on the selection of an arbitrary subset of operators for representing the system density matrix, and its application to the problem of entanglement evaluation in composite quantum systems. As a specific example, we examine in detail a pair MF approach to the ground state (GS) of dimerized spin 1/2 systems with anisotropic ferromagnetic-type XY and XYZ couplings in a transverse field, including chains and arrays with first neighbor and also longer range couplings. The approach is fully analytic and able to capture the main features of the GS of these systems, in contrast with the conventional single spin MF. Its phase diagram differs significantly from that of the latter, exhibiting (Sz) parity breaking just in a finite field window if the coupling between pairs is sufficiently weak, together with a fully dimerized phase below this window and a partially aligned phase above it. It is then shown that through symmetry restoration, the approach is able to correctly predict not only the concurrence of a pair, but also its entanglement with the rest of the chain, which shows a pronounced peak in the parity breaking window. Perturbative corrections allow to reproduce more subtle observables like the entanglement between weakly coupled spins and the low lying energy spectrum. All predictions are tested against exact results for finite systems.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures. Final versio