A novel translationally invariant supersymmetric chain with inverse-square interactions: partition function, thermodynamics and criticality

Abstract

Abstract We introduce a novel family of translationally invariant su ( m | n ) supersymmetric spin chains with long-range interaction not directly associated with a root system. We study the symmetries of this model, establishing in particular the existence of a boson–fermion duality characteristic of this type of system. Taking advantage of the relation of the new chains with an associated many-body supersymmetric spin dynamical model, we are able to compute their partition function in closed form for all values of m and n and for an arbitrary number of spins. When both m and n are even, we show that the partition function factorizes as the product of the partition functions of two supersymmetric Haldane–Shastry spin chains, which in turn leads to a simple expression for the thermodynamic free energy per spin in terms of the Perron eigenvalue of a suitable transfer matrix. We use this expression to study the thermodynamics of a large class of these chains, showing in particular that the specific heat presents a single Schottky peak at approximately the same temperature as a suitable k-level model. We also analyze the critical behavior of the new chains, and in particular, the ground-state degeneracy and the existence of low-energy excitations with a linear energy–momentum dispersion relation. In this way, we show that the only possible critical chains are those with m = 0 , 1 , 2 . In addition, using the explicit formula for the partition function we are able to establish the criticality of the su ( 0 | n ) and su ( 2 | n ) chains with even n, and to evaluate the central charge of their associated conformal field theory.