Comment on ``Quantum Phase Transition of the Randomly Diluted Heisenberg Antiferromagnet on a Square Lattice''

In Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 4204 (2000) (cond-mat/9905379), Kato et al. presented quantum Monte Carlo results indicating that the critical concentration of random non-magnetic sites in the two-dimensional antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model equals the classical percolation density; pc=0.407254. The data also suggested a surprising dependence of the critical exponents on the spin S of the magnetic sites, with a gradual approach to the classical percolation exponents as S goes to infinity. I here argue that the exponents in fact are S-independent and equal to those of classical percolation. The apparent S-dependent behavior found by Kato et al. is due to temperature effects in the simulations as well as a quantum effect that masks the true asymptotic scaling behavior for small lattices.Comment: Comment on Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 4204 (2000), by K. Kato et al.; 1 page, 1 figur

Classical percolation transition in the diluted two-dimensional S=1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet

The two-dimensional antiferromagnetic S=1/2 Heisenberg model with random site dilution is studied using quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Ground state properties of the largest connected cluster on L*L lattices, with L up to 64, are calculated at the classical percolation threshold. In addition, clusters with a fixed number Nc of spins on an infinite lattice at the percolation density are studied for Nc up to 1024. The disorder averaged sublattice magnetization per spin extrapolates to the same non-zero infinite-size value for both types of clusters. Hence, the percolating clusters, which are fractal with dimensionality d=91/48, have antiferromagnetic long-range order. This implies that the order-disorder transition driven by site dilution occurs exactly at the percolation threshold and that the exponents are classical. The same conclusion is reached for the bond-diluted system. The full sublattice magnetization versus site-dilution curve is obtained in terms of a decomposition into a classical geometrical factor and a factor containing all the effects of quantum fluctuations. The spin stiffness is shown to obey the same scaling as the conductivity of a random resistor network.Comment: 18 pages, 21 figures (spin stiffness results added in v2

Ground states of a frustrated quantum spin chain with long-range interactions

The ground state of a spin-1/2 Heisenberg chain with both frustration and long-range interactions is studied using Lanczos exact diagonalization. The evolution of the well known dimerization transition of the system with short-range frustrated interactions (the J1-J2 chain) is investigated in the presence of additional unfrustrated interactions decaying with distance as 1/r^a. It is shown that the continuous (infinite-order) dimerization transition develops into a first-order transition between a long-range ordered antiferromagnetic state and a state with coexisting dimerization and critical spin correlations at wave-number k=\pi/2. The relevance of the model to real systems is discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, final published versio