Fractionalized Edge Spins and Boundary Conditions in Frustrated Ferromagnetic Quantum Spin Chains

Abstract

We examine frustrated ferromagnetic S = 1 spin chains at zero temperature by using the density-matrix renormalization group method. In open boundary conditions, the S = 1 quantum spin chains are known to produce fractionalized free spins on each edge, which causes difficulty in the numerical calculation of the thermodynamic ground states. To overcome this, we propose modified open boundary conditions to suppress the formation of fractionalized edge spins. The comparison of the physical properties of the ground states, which are obtained from the modified and the standard open boundary conditions, reveals that the modified open boundary conditions are more effective in improving the convergence behavior and reducing the computational costs.