Fine structures in the spectrum of the open-boundary Heisenberg chain at large anisotropies

Abstract

At large anisotropies, the spectrum of the Heisenberg XXZ spin chain separates into ``bands'' with energies largely determined by the number of domain walls. The band structure is richer with open-boundary conditions: there are more bands and the bands develop intricate fine structures. We characterize and explain these structures and substructures in the open-boundary chain. The fine structures are explained using degenerate perturbation theory. We also present some dynamical consequences of these subband structures, through explicit time evolution of the wave function from initial states motivated by the fine-structure analysis.