Quantum spin glass and the dipolar interaction

Systems in which the dipolar energy dominates the magnetic interaction, and the crystal field generates strong anisotropy favoring the longitudinal interaction terms, are considered. Such systems in external magnetic field are expected to be a good experimental realization of the transverse field Ising model. With random interactions this model yields a spin glass to paramagnet phase transition as function of the transverse field. Here we show that the off-diagonal dipolar interaction, although effectively reduced, destroys the spin glass order at any finite transverse field. Moreover, the resulting correlation length is shown to be small near the crossover to the paramagnetic phase, in agreement with the behavior of the nonlinear susceptibility in the experiments on \LHx. Thus, we argue that the in these experiments a cross-over to the paramagnetic phase, and not quantum criticality, was observed.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Scaling of the spin stiffness in random spin-1/2 chains : Crossover from pure-metallic behaviour to random singlet-localized regime

In this paper we study the localization transition induced by the disorder in random antiferromagnetic spin-1/2 chains. The results of numerical large scale computations are presented for the XX model using its free fermions representation. The scaling behavior of the spin stiffness is investigated for various disorder strengths. The disorder dependence of the localization length is studied and a comparison between numerical results and bosonization arguments is presented. A non trivial connection between localization effects and the crossover from the pure XX fixed point to the infinite randomness fixed point is pointed out.Comment: Published version, 7 pages, 6 figure

Chain breaks and the susceptibility of Sr_2Cu_{1-x}Pd_xO_{3+\delta} and other doped quasi one-dimensional antiferromagnets

We study the magnetic susceptibility of one-dimensional S=1/2 antiferromagnets containing non-magnetic impurities which cut the chain into finite segments. For the susceptibility of long anisotropic Heisenberg chain-segments with open boundaries we derive a parameter-free result at low temperatures using field theory methods and the Bethe Ansatz. The analytical result is verified by comparing with Quantum-Monte-Carlo calculations. We then show that the partitioning of the chain into finite segments can explain the Curie-like contribution observed in recent experiments on Sr_2Cu_{1-x}Pd_xO_{3+\delta}. Possible additional paramagnetic impurities seem to play only a minor role.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, final versio

Quantum spin glass in anisotropic dipolar systems

The spin-glass phase in the \LHx compound is considered. At zero transverse field this system is well described by the classical Ising model. At finite transverse field deviations from the transverse field quantum Ising model are significant, and one must take properly into account the hyperfine interactions, the off-diagonal terms in the dipolar interactions, and details of the full J=8 spin Hamiltonian to obtain the correct physical picture. In particular, the system is not a spin glass at finite transverse fields and does not show quantum criticality.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, to appear in J. Phys. Condens. Matter (proceedings of the HFM2006 conference

Analytical and numerical studies of disordered spin-1 Heisenberg chains with aperiodic couplings

We investigate the low-temperature properties of the one-dimensional spin-1 Heisenberg model with geometric fluctuations induced by aperiodic but deterministic coupling distributions, involving two parameters. We focus on two aperiodic sequences, the Fibonacci sequence and the 6-3 sequence. Our goal is to understand how these geometric fluctuations modify the physics of the (gapped) Haldane phase, which corresponds to the ground state of the uniform spin-1 chain. We make use of different adaptations of the strong-disorder renormalization-group (SDRG) scheme of Ma, Dasgupta and Hu, widely employed in the study of random spin chains, supplemented by quantum Monte Carlo and density-matrix renormalization-group numerical calculations, to study the nature of the ground state as the coupling modulation is increased. We find no phase transition for the Fibonacci chain, while we show that the 6-3 chain exhibits a phase transition to a gapless, aperiodicity-dominated phase similar to the one found for the aperiodic spin-1/2 XXZ chain. Contrary to what is verified for random spin-1 chains, we show that different adaptations of the SDRG scheme may lead to different qualitative conclusions about the nature of the ground state in the presence of aperiodic coupling modulations.Comment: Accepted for publication in Physical Review

Anomalous elasticity in a disordered layered XY model

We investigate the effects of layered quenched disorder on the behavior of planar magnets, superfluids, and superconductors by performing large-scale Monte-Carlo simulations of a three-dimensional randomly layered XY model. Our data provide numerical evidence for the recently predicted anomalously elastic (sliding) intermediate phase between the conventional high-temperature and low-temperature phases. In this intermediate phase, the spin-wave stiffness perpendicular to the layers vanishes in the thermodynamic limit while the stiffness parallel to the layers as well as the spontaneous magnetization are nonzero. In addition, the susceptibility displays unconventional finite-size scaling properties. We compare our Monte-Carlo results with the theoretical predictions, and we discuss possible experiments in ultracold atomic gases, layered superconductors and in nanostructures.Comment: 6 pages, 4 eps figures included, proceedings of FQMT11, final version as publishe

Spatially Resolved Magnetization in the Bose-Einstein Condensed State of BaCuSi2O6: Evidence for Imperfect Frustration

In order to understand the nature of the two-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensed (BEC) phase in BaCuSi2O6, we performed detailed 63Cu and 29Si NMR above the critical magnetic field, Hc1= 23.4 T. The two different alternating layers present in the system have very different local magnetizations close to Hc1; one is very weak, and its size and field dependence are highly sensitive to the nature of inter-layer coupling. Its precise value could only be determined by "on-site" 63Cu NMR, and the data are fully reproduced by a model of interacting hard-core bosons in which the perfect frustration associated to tetragonal symmetry is slightly lifted, leading to the conclusion that the population of the less populated layers is not fully incoherent but must be partially condensed