Low-energy singlet and triplet excitations in the spin-liquid phase of the two-dimensional J1-J2 model

We analyze the stability of the spontaneously dimerized spin-liquid phase of the frustrated Heisenberg antiferromagnet - the J1-J2 model. The lowest triplet excitation, corresponding to breaking of a singlet bond, is found to be stable in the region 0.38 < J2/J1 < 0.62. In addition we find a stable low-energy collective singlet mode, which is closely related to the spontaneous violation of the discrete symmetry. Both modes are gapped in the quantum disordered phase and become gapless at the transition point to the Neel ordered phase (J2/J1=0.38). The spontaneous dimerization vanishes at the transition and we argue that the disappearance of dimer order is related to the vanishing of the singlet gap. We also present exact diagonalization data on a small (4x4) cluster which indeed show a structure of the spectrum, consistent with that of a system with a four-fold degenerate (spontaneously dimerized) ground state.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, small changes, published versio

Polarization Charge Distribution in Gapped Graphene

We study the distribution of vacuum polarization charge induced by a Coulomb impurity in massive graphene. By analytically computing the polarization function, we show that the charge density is distributed in space in a non-trivial fashion, and on a characteristic length-scale set by the effective Compton wavelength. The density crosses over from a logarithmic behavior below this scale, to a power law variation above it. Our results in the continuum limit are confirmed by explicit diagonalization of the corresponding tight-binding model on a finite-size lattice. Electron-electron interaction effects are also discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures; expanded versio

Low-lying excitations and magnetization process of coupled tetrahedral systems

We investigate low-lying singlet and triplet excitations and the magnetization process of quasi-1D spin systems composed of tetrahedral spin clusters. For a class of such models, we found various exact low-lying excitations; some of them are responsible for the first-order transition between two different ground states formed by local singlets. Moreover, we find that there are two different kinds of magnetization plateaus which are separated by a first-order transition.Comment: To appear in Phys.Rev.B (Issue 01 August 2002). A short comment is adde

Single hole dynamics in dimerized spin liquids

The dynamics of a single hole in quantum antiferromagnets is influenced by magnetic fluctuations. In the present work we consider two situations. The first one corresponds to a single hole in the two leg t-J spin ladder. In this case the wave function renormalization is relatively small and the quasiparticle residue of the S=1/2 state remains close to unity. However at large t/J there are higher spin (S=3/2,5/2,..) bound states of the hole with the magnetic excitations, and therefore there is a crossover from quasiparticles with S=1/2 to quasiparticles with higher spin. The second situation corresponds to a single hole in two coupled antiferromagnetic planes very close to the point of antiferromagnetic instability. In this case the hole wave function renormalization is very strong and the quasiparticle residue vanishes at the point of instability.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figure

Bound states of magnons in the S=1/2 quantum spin ladder

We study the excitation spectrum of the two-leg antiferromagnetic S=1/2 Heisenberg ladder. Our approach is based on the description of the excitations as triplets above a strong-coupling singlet ground state. The quasiparticle spectrum is calculated by treating the excitations as a dilute Bose gas with infinite on-site repulsion. We find singlet (S=0) and triplet (S=1) two-particle bound states of the elementary triplets. We argue that bound states generally exist in any dimerized quantum spin model.Comment: 4 REVTeX pages, 4 Postscript figure

Spin 1/2 Magnetic Impurity in a 2D Magnetic System Close to Quantum Critical Point

We consider a magnetic impurity in a spin liquid state of a magnetic system which is close to the quantum phase transition to the magnetically ordered state. There is similarity between this problem and the Kondo problem. We derive the impurity Green's function, consider renormalizations of the magnetic moments of the impurity, calculate critical indexes for the magnetic susceptibilities and finally consider specific heat and magnetic interaction of two impurities.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figure

Magnetic Impurity in the two-dimensional Heisenberg Antiferromagnet

We analyze the ground state properties of the two-dimensional quantum antiferromagnet with a S=1/2 Kondo impurity. Perturbation theory around the strong Kondo coupling limit is developed and the results compared with studies, based on exact diagonalization of small clusters. We find that at intermediate coupling the impurity is partially screened and the magnetization locally suppressed. A local singlet between the impurity and the host spin is formed asymptotically.Comment: 12 REVTex pages, 4 Postscript figure

Stability of the spiral phase in the 2D extended t-J model

We analyze the t-t'-t''-J model at low doping by chiral perturbation theory and show that the (1,0) spiral state is stabilized by the presence of t',t'' above critical values around 0.2J, assuming t/J=3.1. We find that the (magnon mediated) hole-hole interactions have an important effect on the region of charge stability in the space of parameters t',t'', generally increasing stability, while the stability in the magnetic sector is guaranteed by the presence of spin quantum fluctuations (order from disorder effect). These conclusions are based on perturbative analysis performed up to two loops, with very good convergence.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

On the nature of the transition from the spontaneously dimerized to the Neel phase in the two-dimensional J1-J2 model

We analyze the spectrum of the 2D S=1/2 frustrated Heisenberg model near the transition from the spontaneously dimerized spin-liquid phase into the Neel ordered phase. Two excitation branches: the triplet magnon, and the collective singlet mode, both become gapless at the transition point. However we find that the length scales associated with these modes are well separated at the quantum transition. While in the quantum disordered phase the singlet excitation has finite spectral weight and reflects the existence of spontaneous dimer order, near the transition point the size of the singlet bound state grows exponentially with the correlation length, and hence the quasiparticle residue is exponentially small. Therefore the critical dynamics remains in the O(3) universality class in spite of the four gapless modes.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure