A novel class of translationally invariant spin chains with long-range interactions

We introduce a new class of open, translationally invariant spin chains with long-range interactions depending on both spin permutation and (polarized) spin reversal operators, which includes the Haldane-Shastry chain as a particular degenerate case. The new class is characterized by the fact that the Hamiltonian is invariant under “twisted” translations, combining an ordinary translation with a spin flip at one end of the chain. It includes a remarkable model with elliptic spin-spin interactions, smoothly interpolating between the XXX Heisenberg model with anti-periodic boundary conditions and a new open chain with sites uniformly spaced on a half-circle and interactions inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the spins. We are able to compute in closed form the partition function of the latter chain, thereby obtaining a complete description of its spectrum in terms of a pair of independent su(1|1) and su(m/2) motifs when the number m of internal degrees of freedom is even. This implies that the even m model is invariant under the direct sum of the Yangians Y (gl(1|1)) and Y (gl(0|m/2)). We also analyze several statistical properties of the new chain’s spectrum. In particular, we show that it is highly degenerate, which strongly suggests the existence of an underlying (twisted) Yangian symmetry also for odd m.