Scaling exponents in spin-12Heisenberg chains with dimerization and frustration studied with the density-matrix renormalization group

Abstract

In conformal field theory, key properties of spin-1/2 chains, such as the ground state energy per site and the excitation gap scale with dimerization delta as delta^alpha with known exponents alpha and logarithmic corrections. The logarithmic corrections vanish in a spin chain with nearest (J=1) and next nearest neighbor interactions (J_2), for J_2c=0.2411. DMRG analysis of a frustrated spin chain with no logarithmic corrections yields the field theoretic values of alpha, and the scaling relation is valid up to the physically realized range, delta ~ 0.1. However, chains with logarithmic corrections (J_2<0.2411 J) are more accurately fit by simple power laws with different exponents for physically realized dimerizations. We show the exponents decreasing from approximately 3/4 to 2/3 for the spin gap and from approximately 3/2 to 4/3 for the energy per site and error bars in the exponent also decrease as J_2 approaches to J_2c.