We report on results of numerical studies of the spin polarization of the
half filled second Landau level, which corresponds to the fractional quantum
Hall state at filling factor ν=5/2. Our studies are performed using both
exact diagonalization and Density Matrix Renormalization Group (DMRG) on the
sphere. We find that for the Coulomb interaction the exact finite-system ground
state is fully polarized, for shifts corresponding to both the Moore-Read
Pfaffian state and its particle-hole conjugate (anti-Pfaffian). This result is
found to be robust against small variations of the interaction. The low-energy
excitation spectrum is consistent with spin-wave excitations of a
fully-magnetized ferromagnet.Comment: Final version published on PR