Magnetization plateaus in weakly coupled dimer spin system

I study a spin system consisting of strongly coupled dimers which are in turn weakly coupled in a plane by zigzag interactions. The model can be viewed as the strong-coupling limit of a two-dimensional zigzag chain structure typical, e.g., for the $(ac)$-planes of KCuCl_3. It is shown that the magnetization curve in this model has plateaus at 1/3 and 2/3 of the saturation magnetization, and an additional plateau at 1/2 can appear in a certain range of the model parameters; the critical fields are calculated perturbatively. It is argued that for the three-dimensional lattice structure of the KCuCl_3 family the plateaus at 1/4 and 3/4 of the saturation can be favored in a similar way, which might be relevant to the recent experiments on NH_4CuCl_3 by Shiramura et al., J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. {\bf 67}, 1548 (1998).Comment: serious changes in Sect. II,III, final version to appear in PR

Dilute-Bose-Gas Approach to ground state phases of 3D quantum helimagnets under high magnetic field

We study high-field phase diagram and low-energy excitations of three-dimensional quantum helimagnets. Slightly below the saturation field, the emergence of magnetic order may be mathematically viewed as Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of magnons. The method of dilute Bose gas enables an unbiased quantitative analysis of quantum effects in three-dimensional helimagnets and thereby three phases are found: cone, coplanar fan and an attraction-dominant one. To investigate the last phase, we extend the usual BEC approach so that we can handle 2-magnon bound states. In the case of 2-magnon BEC, the transverse magnetization vanishes and long-range order occurs in the quadrupolar channel (spin-nematic phase). As an application, we map out the phase diagram of a 3D helimagnet which consists of frustrated J1-J2 chains coupled by an interchain interaction J3.Comment: 4pages, 3figures, International Conference on Magnetism (ICM) 2009 (Karlsruhe, Germany, July 26-31, 2009)

Magnetization plateaus as insulator-superfluid transitions in quantum spin systems

We study the magnetization process in two-dimensional S=1/2 spin systems, to discuss the appearance of a plateau structure. The following three cases are considered: (1) the Heisenberg antiferromagnet and multiple-spin exchange model on the triangular lattice, (2) Shastry-Sutherland type lattice, [which is a possible model for SrCu2(BO3)2,] (3) 1/5-depleted lattice (for CaV4O9). We find in these systems that magnetization plateaus can appear owing to a transition from superfluid to a Mott insulator of magnetic excitations. The plateau states have CDW order of the excitations. The magnetizations of the plateaus depend on components of the magnetic excitations, range of the repulsive interaction, and the geometry of the lattice.Comment: 5 pages, RevTeX, 7 figures, note and reference adde

Magnetization plateaus in antiferromagnetic-(ferromagnetic)_{n} polymerized S=1/2 XXZ chains

The plateau-non-plateau transition in the antiferromagnetic-(ferromagnetic)$_{n}$ polymerized $S=1/2$ XXZ chains under the magnetic field is investigated. The universality class of this transition belongs to the Brezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) type. The critical points are determined by level spectroscopy analysis of the numerical diagonalization data for $4 \leq p \leq 13$ where $p(\equiv n+1)$ is the size of a unit cell. It is found that the critical strength of ferromagnetic coupling decreases with $p$ for small $p$ but increases for larger enough $p$. It is also found that the plateau for large $p$ is wide enough for moderate values of exchange coupling so that it should be easily observed experimentally. This is in contrast to the plateaus for $p = 3$ chains which are narrow for a wide range of exchange coupling even away from the critical point

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

Attenuation of ischemic liver injury by prostaglandin E<inf>1</inf> analogue, misoprostol, and prostaglandin I<inf>2</inf> analogue, OP-41483

Background: Prostaglandin has been reported to have protective effects against liver injury. Use of this agent in clinical settings, however, is limited because of drugrelated side effects. This study investigated whether misoprostol, prostaglandin E1 analogue, and OP-41483, prostaglandin I2 analogue, which have fewer adverse effects with a longer half-life, attenuate ischemic liver damage. Study Design: Thirty beagle dogs underwent 2 hours of hepatic vascular exclusion using venovenous bypass. Misoprostol was administered intravenously for 30 minutes before ischemia and for 3 hours after reperfusion. OP-41483 was administered intraportally for 30 minutes before ischemia (2 μg/kg/min) and for 3 hours after reperfusion (0.5 μg/kg/min). Animals were divided into five groups: untreated control group (n = 10); high-dose misoprostol (total 100 μg/kg) group (MP-H, n = 5); middle-dose misoprostol (50 μg/kg) group (MP-M, n = 5); low-dose misoprostol (25 μg/kg) group (MP-L, n = 5); and OP-41483 group (OP, n = 5). Animal survival, hepatic tissue blood flow (HTBF), liver function, and histology were analyzed. Results: Two-week animal survival rates were 30% in control, 60% in MP-H, 100% in MP-M, 80% in MP-L, and 100% in OP. The treatments with prostaglandin analogues improved HTBF, and attenuated liver enzyme release, adenine nucleotrides degradation, and histologic abnormalities. In contrast to the MP-H animals that exhibited unstable cardiovascular systems, the MP- M, MP-L, and OP animals experienced only transient hypotension. Conclusions: These results indicate that misoprostol and OP-41483 prevent ischemic liver damage, although careful dose adjustment of misoprostol is required to obtain the best protection with minimal side effects

Magnetization Curves of Antiferromagnetic Heisenberg Spin-1/2 Ladders

Magnetization processes of spin-1/2 Heisenberg ladders are studied using strong-coupling expansions, numerical diagonalization of finite systems and a bosonization approach. We find that the magnetization exhibits plateaux as a function of the applied field at certain rational fractions of the saturation value. Our main focus are ladders with 3 legs where plateaux with magnetization one third of the saturation value are shown to exist.Comment: 5 pages REVTeX, 4 PostScript figures included using psfig.sty; this is the final version to appear in Phys. Rev. Let