Random Exchange Couplings Research Articles

Planckian metal at a doping-induced quantum critical point

We numerically study a model of interacting spin-$1/2$ electrons with random exchange coupling on a fully connected lattice. This model hosts a quantum critical point separating two distinct metallic phases as a function of doping: a Fermi liquid phase with a large Fermi surface volume and a low-doping phase with local moments ordering into a spin-glass. We show that this quantum critical point has non-Fermi liquid properties characterized by $T$-linear Planckian behavior, $\omega/T$ scaling and slow spin dynamics of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) type. The $\omega/T$ scaling function associated with the electronic self-energy is found to have an intrinsic particle-hole asymmetry, a hallmark of a `skewed' non-Fermi liquid.

Confinement, reduced entanglement, and spin-glass order in a random quantum spin-ice model

We study an effective spin model derived perturbatively from random transverse-field Ising model on the pyrochlore lattice. The model consists of spin-configurations on the pyrochlore lattice, restricted to the spin-ice subspace, with spins interacting with random Ising exchange couplings as well as ring exchanges along the hexagons of the lattice. This model is studied by exact diagonalization upto N=64 site systems. We calculate spin-glass correlation functions and local entanglement entropy $S_T$ between spins in a single tetrahedron and the rest of the system. We find that the model undergoes two phase transitions. At weak randomness the model is in a quantum spin-ice phase where $S_T=\ln{6}$. Increasing randomness first leads to a frozen phase, with long-range spin-glass order and $S_T=\ln{2}$ corresponding to the Cat states associated with Ising order. Further increase in randomness leads to a random resonating-hexagon phase with a frozen backbone of spins and a broad distribution of entanglement entropies. The implications of these studies for non-Kramers rare-earth pyrochlores are discussed.

Destruction of long-range order in noncollinear two-dimensional antiferromagnets by random-bond disorder

We consider frustrated Heisenberg antiferromagnets, whose clean-limit ground state is characterized by non-collinear long-range order with non-zero vector chirality, and study the effects of quenched bond disorder, i.e., random exchange couplings. A single bond defect is known to induce a dipolar texture in the spin background independent of microscopic details. Using general analytical arguments as well as large-scale simulations for the classical triangular-lattice Heisenberg model, we show that any finite concentration of such defects destroys long-range order for spatial dimension $d\leq 2$, in favor of a glassy state whose correlation length in $d=2$ is exponentially large for small randomness. Our results are relevant for a wide range of layered frustrated magnets.

Dynamical properties of the S=12 random Heisenberg chain

We use numerical techniques to study dynamical properties at finite temperature ($T$) of the Heisenberg spin chain with random exchange couplings, which realizes the random singlet (RS) fixed point in the low-energy limit. Specifically, we study the dynamic spin structure factor $S(q,\omega)$, which can be probed directly by inelastic neutron scattering experiments and, in the limit of small $\omega$, in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments through the spin-lattice relaxation rate $1/T_1$. Our work combines three complementary methods: exact diagonalization, matrix-product-state algorithms, and stochastic analytic continuation of quantum Monte Carlo results in imaginary time. Unlike the uniform system, whose low-energy excitations at low $T$ are restricted to $q$ close to $0$ and $\pi$, our study reveals a continuous narrow band of low-energy excitations in $S(q,\omega)$, extending throughout the Brillouin zone. Close to $q=\pi$, the scaling properties of these excitations are well captured by the RS theory, but we also see disagreements with some aspects of the predicted $q$-dependence further away from $q=\pi$. Furthermore we find spin diffusion effects close to $q=0$ that are not contained within the RS theory but give non-negligible contributions to the mean $1/T_1$. To compare with NMR experiments, we consider the distribution of the local $1/T_1$ values, which is broad, approximately described by a stretched exponential. The mean value first decreases with $T$, but starts to increase and diverge below a crossover temperature. Although a similar divergent behavior has been found for the static uniform susceptibility, this divergent behavior of $1/T_1$ has never been seen in experiments. Our results show that the divergence of the mean $1/T_1$ is due to rare events in the disordered chains and is concealed in experiments, where the typical $1/T_1$ value is accessed.

Cluster-Glass Phase in Pyrochlore XY Antiferromagnets with Quenched Disorder.

We study the impact of quenched disorder (random exchange couplings or site dilution) on easy-plane pyrochlore antiferromagnets. In the clean system, order by disorder selects a magnetically ordered state from a classically degenerate manifold. In the presence of randomness, however, different orders can be chosen locally depending on details of the disorder configuration. Using a combination of analytical considerations and classical MonteCarlo simulations, we argue that any long-range-ordered magnetic state is destroyed beyond a critical level of randomness where the system breaks into magnetic domains due to random exchange anisotropies, becoming, therefore, a glass of spin clusters, in accordance with the available experimental data. These random anisotropies originate from off-diagonal exchange couplings in the microscopic Hamiltonian, establishing their relevance to other magnets with strong spin-orbit coupling.

Spin dynamics of random Ising chain in coexisting transverse and longitudinal magnetic fields

The dynamics of the random Ising spin chain in coexisting transverse and longitudinal magnetic fields is studied by the recursion method. Both the spin autocorrelation function and its spectral density are investigated by numerical calculations. It is found that system’s dynamical behaviors depend on the deviation σJ of the random exchange coupling between nearest-neighbor spins and the ratio rlt of the longitudinal and the transverse fields: (i) For rlt=0, the system undergoes two crossovers from N independent spins precessing about the transverse magnetic field to a collective-mode behavior, and then to a central-peak behavior as σJ increases. (ii) For rlt≠0, the system may exhibit a coexistence behavior of a collective-mode one and a central-peak one. When σJ is small (or large enough), system undergoes a crossover from a coexistence behavior (or a disordered behavior) to a central-peak behavior as rlt increases. (iii) Increasing σJ depresses effects of both the transverse and the longitudinal magnetic fields. (iv) Quantum random Ising chain in coexisting magnetic fields may exhibit under-damping and critical-damping characteristics simultaneously. These results indicate that changing the external magnetic fields may control and manipulate the dynamics of the random Ising chain.

Coercivity and random interfacial exchange coupling in CoPt/Co films

Hard-soft bilayers are analogous to prototype exchange-biased ferromagnetic–antiferromagnetic systems as the minor loop of the soft layer is biased by the hard, and furthermore they offer bias layer tunability. In sputtered CoPt/Co hard-soft bilayers, we demonstrate that the exchange bias field shows a linear dependence on the hard layer magnetization, while the coercivity shows a quadratic dependence. Analysis of the minor hysteresis loop features supported by Monte-Carlo simulations provides clear evidence that the coercivity of the soft layer is mainly determined by the tunable randomness of the domain state of the hard layer.

The dynamics of one-dimensional random quantum XY system with Dzyaloshinskii—Moriya interaction

In this paper, the effects of random variables on the dynamics of the s = 1/2 XY model with the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction are studied. By means of the recurrence relation method in the high-temperature limit, we calculate the spin autocorrelation functions as well as the corresponding spectral densities for the cases that the exchange couplings between spins or external magnetic fields satisfy the double-Gaussian distribution. It is found that when the standard deviation of random exchange coupling δJ (or the standard deviation of random external field δB) is small, the dynamics of the system undergoes a crossover from a collective-mode behavior to a central-peak one. However, when δJ(or δB) is large, the crossover vanishes, and the system shows a central-peak behavior or the most disordered one. We also analyze the cases in which the exchange couplings or the external fields satisfy the bimodal and the Gaussian distributions. Our results show that for all the cases considered, the dynamics of the above system is similar to that of the one-dimensional random XY model.

Effect of randomness on quantum data buses of Heisenberg spin chains

A strongly coupled spin chain can mediate long-distance effective couplings or entanglement between remote qubits and can be used as a quantum data bus. We study how the fidelity of a spin-1/2 Heisenberg chain as a spin bus is affected by static random exchange couplings and magnetic fields. We find that, while nonuniform exchange couplings preserve the isotropy of the qubit effective couplings, they cause the energy levels, the eigenstates, and the magnitude of the couplings to vary locally. On the other hand, random local magnetic fields lead to an avoided level crossing for the bus ground-state manifold and cause the effective qubit couplings to be anisotropic. Interestingly, the total magnetic moment of the ground state of an odd-size bus may not be parallel to the average magnetic field. Its alignment depends on both the direction of the average field and the field distribution, in contrast with the ground state of a single spin which always aligns with the applied magnetic field to minimize the Zeeman energy. Lastly, we calculate sensitivities of the spin bus to such local variations, which are potentially useful for evaluating decoherence when dynamical fluctuations in the exchange coupling or magnetic field are considered.

Understanding Noise Mechanism in Small Grain Size Perpendicular Thin Film Media

One of the myths of today's perpendicular thin film media is that there is no noticeable gain in medium signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) as grain size reduces below 8 nm. A recent experimental study shows that intergranular exchange coupling exhibits an exponential dependence of the oxide grain boundary thickness for the thickness below 1 nanometer. In this paper, we present a systematic micromagnetic modeling analysis regarding the effect of spatially random intergranular exchange coupling due to the variation in grain boundary thickness. As oxide boundary becomes sufficiently thin in small grain size media, a distribution in the grain boundary thickness is found to cost significant SNR loss according to simulation results.

Delocalized 2-magnons eigenstates in long-range correlated random Heisenberg chains

We consider the one-dimensional quantum disordered S = 1 2 Heisenberg ferromagnetic chain model with long-range correlated exchange couplings and study the nature of collective two-spin excitations. By using an exact diagonalization of the Hamiltonian in the two-spin flip subspace, we compute the spin wave participation number to characterize the localized or delocalized nature of the two-magnon states. For strongly correlated random exchange couplings, extended two-spin excitations with finite energy appear. Integrating the time-dependent Schroedinger equation, we follow the time-evolution of an initially localized two-spin state. We find that, associated with the emergence of extended spin waves, the wave-packet mean-square displacement develops a ballistic spread. Further, the single-spin wave-packet acquires an asymmetric profile due to the kinematic interaction between the excited spins.

Effects of double-Gaussian disorder on the dynamics of the quantumXYchain

We investigate the dynamics of the random one-dimensional spin-1/2 quantum isotropic $XY$ model in high-temperature limit by the recurrence relations method. Both the time-dependent transverse autocorrelation function and the corresponding spectral density are calculated for the cases that the exchange couplings between spins or transverse fields satisfy the double-Gaussian distribution. It is found that when the value of ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{J}$ (standard deviation of random exchange coupling) or ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{B}$ (standard deviation of random external magnetic field) is small, the dynamics of the system undergoes a crossover between a central-peak behavior and a collective-mode one. However, when ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{J}$ or ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{B}$ is large enough, the crossover vanishes, and the system shows the most disordered behavior or a central-peak behavior. We also investigate the cases that the couplings or fields satisfy the bimodal distribution and Gaussian distribution, which are the two special cases of double-Gaussian distribution, and find that the dynamics of the system is similar to that of the one-dimensional transverse Ising system.

Quantum spin chains with nonlocally-correlated random exchange coupling and random-mass Dirac fermions

S= 1 2 quantum spin chains and ladders with random exchange coupling are studied by using an effective low-energy field theory and transfer matrix methods. Effects of the nonlocal correlations of exchange couplings are investigated numerically. In particular we calculate localization length of magnons, density of states, correlation functions and multifractal exponents as a function of the correlation length of the exchange couplings. As the correlation length increases, there occurs a “phase transition” and the above quantities exhibit different behaviors in two phases. This suggests that the strong-randomness fixed point of the random spin chains and random-singlet state get unstable by the long-range correlations of the random exchange couplings.

Bond-disordered spin systems: Theory and application to doped high-Tccompounds

We examine the stability of magnetic order in a classical Heisenberg model with quenched random exchange couplings. This system represents the spin degrees of freedom in high-${T}_{c}$ compounds with immobile dopants. Starting from a replica representation of the nonlinear-$\ensuremath{\sigma}$ model, we perform a renormalization-group analysis. The importance of cumulants of the disorder distribution to arbitrarily high orders necessitates a functional renormalization scheme. From the renormalization flow equations we determine the magnetic correlation length numerically as a function of the impurity concentration and temperature. From our analysis it follows that two-dimensional layers can be magnetically ordered for arbitrarily strong but sufficiently diluted defects. We further consider the dimensional crossover in a stack of weakly coupled layers. The resulting phase diagram is compared with experimental data for ${\mathrm{La}}_{2\ensuremath{-}x}{\mathrm{Sr}}_{x}{\mathrm{CuO}}_{4}.$

Random antiferromagnetic quantum spin chains: Exact results from scaling of rare regions

We study XY and dimerized XX spin-1/2 chains with random exchange couplings by analytical and numerical methods and scaling considerations. We extend previous investigations to dynamical properties, to surface quantities and operator profiles, and give a detailed analysis of the Griffiths phase. We present a phenomenological scaling theory of average quantities based on the scaling properties of rare regions, in which the distribution of the couplings follows a surviving random walk character. Using this theory we have obtained the complete set of critical decay exponents of the random XY and XX models, both in the volume and at the surface. The scaling results are confronted with numerical calculations based on a mapping to free fermions, which then lead to an exact correspondence with directed walks. The numerically calculated critical operator profiles on large finite systems (L<=512) are found to follow conformal predictions with the decay exponents of the phenomenological scaling theory. Dynamical correlations in the critical state are in average logarithmically slow and their distribution show multi-scaling character. In the Griffiths phase, which is an extended part of the off-critical region average autocorrelations have a power-law form with a non-universal decay exponent, which is analytically calculated. We note on extensions of our work to the random antiferromagnetic XXZ chain and to higher dimensions.

Numerical renormalization-group study of spin correlations in one-dimensional random spin chains

We calculate the ground-state two-spin correlation functions of spin-1/2 quantum Heisenberg chains with random exchange couplings using the real-space renormalization group scheme. We extend the conventional scheme to take account of the contribution of local higher multiplet excitations in each decimation step. This extended scheme can provide highly accurate numerical data for large systems. The random average of staggered spin correlations of the chains with random antiferromagnetic (AF) couplings shows algebraic decay like $1/r^2$, which verifies the Fisher's analytic results. For chains with random ferromagnetic (FM) and AF couplings, the random average of generalized staggered correlations is found to decay more slowly than a power-law, in the form close to $1/\ln(r)$. The difference between the distribution functions of the spin correlations of the random AF chains and of the random FM-AF chains is also discussed.

Random antiferromagnetic quantum spin chains.

The properties of spin-1/2 antiferromagnetic chains with various types of random exchange coupling are studied via an asymptotically exact decimation renormalization-group transformation, which is a generalization of that introduced by Dasgupta and Ma. Random-singlet phases occur in which each spin is paired with one other spin that may be very far away; more exotic phases also occur. The behavior of typical and mean correlation functions is analyzed and found to be very different, with very small sets of spins dominating the latter at long distances as well as the low-temperature thermodynamics. Some of the phase transitions that occur between antiferromagnetically ordered phases and random singlet or other antiferromagnetic phases are also analyzed. For example, if a small uniaxial anisotropy perturbation is added to a random Heisenberg antiferromagnetic chain, a transition occurs from a random-singlet phase to an Ising antiferromagnetic phase, as the anisotropy changes sign from easy plane to easy axis. The staggered magnetization vanishes at the transition with critical exponent \ensuremath{\beta}=8/(1+ \ensuremath{\surd}7 ). Possible implications for the properties of random quantum magnetic systems in higher dimensions are briefly discussed.

Random-exchange disorder in the spin-1/2 XXZ chain.

The one-dimensional XXZ model is studied in the presence of disorder in the Heisenberg exchange integral. Recent predictions obtained from renormalization-group calculations are investigated numerically using a Lanczos algorithm on chains of up to 18 sites. It is found that in the presence of strong X-Y-symmetric random-exchange couplings, a ``random singlet'' phase with quasi-long-range order in the spin-spin correlations persists. As the planar anisotropy is varied, the full zero-temperature phase diagram is obtained and compared with predictions of Doty and Fisher [Phys. Rev. B 45, 2167 (1992)]. In addition, we observed a novel reentrant transition of the ordered phases when exchange disorder is included.

Super-diffusion in random chains with correlated disorder

We study the spin-wave dynamics of the one-dimensional Heisenberg ferromagnet with random exchange couplings J. The problem becomes equivalent to considering an electronic wavepacket put on an initial site in a chain with correlated off-diagonal disorder, where the bonds are random in pairs. The mean-square displacement of the wavepacket versus time is shown to display asymptotically super-diffusion (σ 2( t)∼ t 3 2 ) and localization (σ 2( t)∼const), depending on whether the average over the disorder 〈1/ J〉 exists or not. In the critical intermediate case ordinary diffusion σ 2( t)∼ t is obtained. We show that the dynamical behaviour relates closely to the corresponding spectral density and the localization length singularities whose type is demonstrated.

Dilute antiferromagnetism and random fields in two-dimensional Ising systems

We study the two-dimensional (2D) diluted antiferromagnet in a uniform magnetic field using the real-space renormalization group in a hierarchical cell. We follow separately the probability distributions of random-exchange couplings and of magnetic fields along the renormalization process. Due to the random couplings, the initial uniform magnetic field becomes a random variable with a mean value that continuously decreases to zero. In this 2D case the flow of the probability distributions is always toward the attractor of the paramagnetic phase characterized by 〈T/J〉=\ensuremath{\infty} and 〈(h/T${)}^{2}$〉=\ensuremath{\infty} in agreement with ${\mathit{d}}_{\mathit{c}}$=2. We discuss the connections of our results with those obtained previously for the random-field problem.