Exotic Quantum Phase Transitions in Spin Nanotubes

Abstract

Recently some quantum spin systems on tube lattices, so called spin nanotubes, have been synthesized. They are expected to be interesting low-dimensional systems like the carbon nanotubes. As the first step of theoretical study on the spin nanotube, we investigate the S=1/2 three-leg spin tube, which is the simplest one, using the numerical exact diagonalization and the finite-size scaling analysis. In our previous works the quantum phase transition between the spin-gap and gapless phases was revealed to occur due to the asymmetric lattice distortion. In addition the transition between the magnetization plateau and gapless phases at 1/3 of the saturation magnetization induced by the same distortion. Recently we found that the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid is realized in the 1/3 magnetization plateau phase for the symmetric three-leg spin tube.