Reply to the "Comment on 'Phase diagram of an impurity in the spin-1/2 chain: two channel Kondo effect versus Curie law'"

In a comment by A.A. Zvyagin the phase diagram in our Letter [Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 516 (2001)] was critisized of being incomplete and a new fixed point was suggested. We show that this point is in fact not a fixed point and that the phase diagram is correct as presented.Comment: Reply to a comment by A.A. Zvyagin. 1 page, 1 figure. The latest version in PDF format is available from http://fy.chalmers.se/~eggert/papers/reply.pd

Mixed-state dynamics in one-dimensional quantum lattice systems: a time-dependent superoperator renormalization algorithm

We present an algorithm to study mixed-state dynamics in one-dimensional quantum lattice systems. The algorithm can be used, e.g., to construct thermal states or to simulate real time evolutions given by a generic master equation. Its two main ingredients are (i) a superoperator renormalization scheme to efficiently describe the state of the system and (ii) the time evolving block decimation (TEBD) technique to efficiently update the state during a time evolution. The computational cost of a simulation increases significantly with the amount of correlations between subsystems but it otherwise depends only linearly in the system size. We present simulations involving quantum spins and fermions in one spatial dimension.Comment: See also F. Verstraete et al. cond-mat/040642

Critical entanglement of XXZ Heisenberg chains with defects

We study the entanglement properties of anisotropic open spin one-half Heisenberg chains with a modified central bond. The entanglement entropy between the two half-chains is calculated with the density-matrix renormalization method (DMRG).We find a logarithmic behaviour with an effective central charge c' varying with the length of the system. It flows to one in the ferromagnetic region and to zero in the antiferromagnetic region of the model. In the XX case it has a non-universal limit and we recover previous results.Comment: 8 pages, 15 figure

Friedel Oscillations and Charge Density Waves in Chains and Ladders

The density matrix renormalization group method for ladders works much more efficiently with open boundary conditions. One consequence of these boundary conditions is groundstate charge density oscillations that often appear to be nearly constant in magnitude or to decay only slightly away from the boundaries. We analyse these using bosonization techniques, relating their detailed form to the correlation exponent and distinguishing boundary induced generalized Friedel oscillations from true charge density waves. We also discuss a different approach to extracting the correlation exponent from the finite size spectrum which uses exclusively open boundary conditions and can therefore take advantage of data for much larger system sizes. A general discussion of the Friedel oscillation wave-vectors is given, and a convenient Fourier transform technique is used to determine it. DMRG results are analysed on Hubbard and t-J chains and 2 leg t-J ladders. We present evidence for the existence of a long-ranged charge density wave state in the t-J ladder at a filling of n=0.75 and near J/t \approx 0.25.Comment: Revtex, 15 pages, 15 postscript figure

Efficient simulation of one-dimensional quantum many-body systems

We present a numerical method to simulate the time evolution, according to a Hamiltonian made of local interactions, of quantum spin chains and systems alike. The efficiency of the scheme depends on the amount of the entanglement involved in the simulated evolution. Numerical analysis indicate that this method can be used, for instance, to efficiently compute time-dependent properties of low-energy dynamics of sufficiently regular but otherwise arbitrary one-dimensional quantum many-body systems.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Phase diagram of an impurity in the spin-1/2 chain: two channel Kondo effect versus Curie law

We consider a magnetic s=1/2 impurity in the antiferromagnetic spin chain as a function of two coupling parameters: the symmetric coupling of the impurity to two sites in the chain $J_1$ and the coupling between the two sites $J_2$. By using field theory arguments and numerical calculations we can identify all possible fixed points and classify the renormalization flow between them, which leads to a non-trivial phase diagram. Depending on the detailed choice of the two (frustrating) coupling strengths, the stable phases correspond either to a decoupled spin with Curie law behavior or to a non-Fermi liquid fixed point with a logarithmically diverging impurity susceptibility as in the two channel Kondo effect. Our results resolve a controversy about the renormalization flow.Comment: 5 pages in revtex format including 4 embedded figures (using epsf). The latest version in PDF format is available from http://fy.chalmers.se/~eggert/papers/phase-diagram.pd

Local Magnetic Susceptibility of the Positive Muon in the Quasi 1D S=1/2 Antiferromagnet KCuF3_3

We report muon spin rotation measurements of the local magnetic susceptibility around a positive muon in the paramagnetic state of the quasi one-dimensional spin 1/2 antiferromagnet KCuF$_3$. Signals from two distinct sites are resolved which have a temperature dependent frequency shift which is different than the magnetic susceptibility. This difference is attributed to a muon induced perturbation of the spin 1/2 chain.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, The 2002 International Conference on Muon Spin Rotation, Relaxation and Resonance, Virginia. US

Entanglement in quantum critical phenomena

Quantum phase transitions occur at zero temperature and involve the appearance of long-range correlations. These correlations are not due to thermal fluctuations but to the intricate structure of a strongly entangled ground state of the system. We present a microscopic computation of the scaling properties of the ground-state entanglement in several 1D spin chain models both near and at the quantum critical regimes. We quantify entanglement by using the entropy of the ground state when the system is traced down to $L$ spins. This entropy is seen to scale logarithmically with $L$, with a coefficient that corresponds to the central charge associated to the conformal theory that describes the universal properties of the quantum phase transition. Thus we show that entanglement, a key concept of quantum information science, obeys universal scaling laws as dictated by the representations of the conformal group and its classification motivated by string theory. This connection unveils a monotonicity law for ground-state entanglement along the renormalization group flow. We also identify a majorization rule possibly associated to conformal invariance and apply the present results to interpret the breakdown of density matrix renormalization group techniques near a critical point.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Exact bounds on the ground-state energy of the infinite-U Hubbard model

We give upper and lower bounds for the ground-state energy of the infinite-U Hubbard model. In two dimensions, using these bounds we are able to rule out the possibility of phase separation between the undoped-insulating state and an hole-rich state.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figure, to appear in Phys. Rev.