Ground state of an Ising-type spin-1/2 chain with competing interactions
The ground state of an Ising-type spin-1/2 chain with ferromagnetic bond-alternating nearest-neighbor and anti-ferromagnetic uniform next-nearest-neighbor interactions is studied by using the exact-diagonalization method and the density-matrix renormalization-group method. The Hamiltonian describing the system is expressed as H = Σi h2i1,2i J1 Σi h2i,2i+1 + J2 Σi hi,i+2 with hi,i' = γ(Six Si'x + Siy Si'y) + Siz Si'z, where J1 [Formula: see text] 0, J2 [Formula: see text] 0, and 1 > γ [Formula: see text] 0. Special attention is paid to the ground-state phase diagram on the J1 versus J2 plane for a given value of γ. The phase diagram is composed of the ferromagnetic, intermediate, and up-up-down-down phases, the intermediate phase being characterized by its magnetization, which takes finite but unsaturated values. The phase diagram obtained for γ = 0.5 shows that the region of the intermediate phase for a given value of J1 is widest when J1 = 1.0 and becomes narrower rather rapidly as J1 decreases or increases from 1.0. The J2-dependence of the ground-state magnetization for γ = 0.5 and J1 = 0.85 is also discussed. PACS Nos.: 75.10Jm, 75.40Mg