Spin Coherent Path Integral Research Articles

Sigma-model analysis of SU(3) antiferromagnetic spins on the triangular lattice

Using field-theoretic techniques, we study the $\mathrm{SU}(3)$ analog of antiferromagnetic Heisenberg spin model on the triangular lattice putting the $p$-box symmetric representation on each site. Taking the large-$p$ limit, we show that the low-energy effective theory is described by a $(2+1)$-dimensional relativistic $\mathrm{SU}(3)/\mathrm{U}{(1)}^{2}$ nonlinear sigma model. Since the target space has a nontrivial homotopy ${\ensuremath{\pi}}_{2}(\mathrm{SU}(3)/\mathrm{U}{(1)}^{2})\ensuremath{\simeq}{\mathbb{Z}}^{2}$, this model has two kinds of magnetic skyrmions, which can be created and annihilated by monopole instantons. By careful analysis of the Wess-Zumino term in the spin coherent path integral, we compute the Berry phase for these monopoles and it produces the destructive interference. This restricts possible perturbations of the effective Lagrangian by monopole operators, and we see that the valence-bond-solid (VBS) phase should have degenerate ground states when $p\ensuremath{\notin}3\mathbb{Z}$. We also compute 't Hooft anomalies to constrain possible phases of this system, and a direct phase transition between N\'eel and VBS phases is supported from the anomaly matching.

Semiclassical dynamics and long-time asymptotics of the central-spin problem in a quantum dot

The spin of an electron trapped in a quantum dot is a promising candidate implementation of a qubit for quantum information processing. We study the central-spin problem of the effect of the hyperfine interaction between such an electron and a large number of nuclear moments. Using a spin coherent path integral, we show that in this limit the electron spin evolution is well described by classical dynamics of both the nuclear and electron spins. We then introduce approximate yet systematic methods to analyze aspects of the classical dynamics, and discuss the importance of the exact integrability of the central-spin Hamiltonian. This is compared with numerical simulation. Finally, we obtain the asymptotic long-time decay of the electron spin polarization. We show that this is insensitive to integrability, and determined instead by the transfer of angular momentum to very weakly coupled spins far from the center of the quantum dot. The specific form of the decay is shown to depend sensitively on the form of the electronic wave function.