Graduate Texts in Contemporary Physics
Series Editors:
Joseph L. Birman
Jeffrey W. Lynn
Mark P. Silverman
H. Eugene Stanley
Mikhail Voloshin
Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
Graduate Texts in Contemporary Physics
R.N. Mohapatra: Unification and Supersymmetry: The Frontiers of
Quark-Lepton Physics, 2nd Edition
R.E. Prange and S.M. Girvin (eds.): The Quantum Hall Effect
M. Kaku: Introduction to Superstrings
J.W. Lynn (ed.): High-Temperature Superconductivity
H.V. Klapdor (ed.): Neutrinos
J .H. Hinken: Superconductor Electronics: Fundamentals and
Microwave Applications
M. Kaku: Strings, Conformal Fields, and Topology: An Introduction
H. Oberhurnmer: Nuclei in the Cosmos
A. Auerbach: Interacting Electrons and Quantum Magnetism
Yu.M. Ivanchenko and A.A. Lisyansky: Physics of Critical Fluctuations
P. Di Francesco, P. Mathieu, and D. Senechal: Conformal Field Theories
B. Felsager: Geometry, Particles, and Fields
A.M. Zagoskin: Quantum Theory of Many-Body Systems: Techniques and
Applications
Assa Auerbach
Interacting Electrons and
Quantum Magnetism
With 34 Illustrations
, Springer
Assa Auerbach
Technion
Israel Institute of Technology
Department of Physics
Haifa 32000, Israel
Series Editors
Joseph L. Binnan Jeffrey W. Lynn Mark P. Silvennan
Department of Physics Reactor Radiation Division Department of Physics
City College of CUNY National Institute of Standards Trinity College
New York, NY 10031, USA and Technology Hartford, CT 06106, USA
Gaithersburg, MD 20899, USA
H. Eugene Stanley Mikhail Voloshin
Center for Polymer Studies Theoretical Physics Institute
Physics Department Tate Laboratory of Physics
Boston University University of Minnesota
Boston, MA 02215, USA Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Auerbach, Assa.
Interacting electrons and quantum magnetism / Assa
Auerbach.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4612-6928-1 ISBN 978-1-4612-0869-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4612-0869-3.
1. Energy-band theory of solids. 2. Wave functions.
3. Integrals, Path. 4. Electron-electron interactions.
5. Magnetism. 1. Title.
QCI76.8.E4A94 1994
530.4'12~c20 94-6510
With illustrations by Dick Codor.
Printed on acid-free paper.
© 1994 Springer Science+Business Media New York
Originally published by Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York in 1994
Softcover reprint of the hardcover Ist edition 1994
All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the
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Production managed by Hal Henglein; manufacturing supervised by Jacqui Ashri.
Photocomposed copy prepared from the author's Ini!JX files.
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 (Corrected, second printing, 1998)
SPIN 10682862
To my parents, Ruth and Israel.
Preface
In the excitement and rapid pace of developments, writing pedagogical texts
has low priority for most researchers. However, in transforming my lecture
notes l into this book, I found a personal benefit: the organization of what I
understand in a (hopefully simple) logical sequence. Very little in this text
is my original contribution. Most of the knowledge was collected from the
research literature. Some was acquired by conversations with colleagues; a
kind of physics oral tradition passed between disciples of a similar faith.
For many years, diagramatic perturbation theory has been the major
theoretical tool for treating interactions in metals, semiconductors, itiner-
ant magnets, and superconductors. It is in essence a weak coupling expan-
sion about free quasiparticles. Many experimental discoveries during the
last decade, including heavy fermions, fractional quantum Hall effect, high-
temperature superconductivity, and quantum spin chains, are not readily
accessible from the weak coupling point of view. Therefore, recent years
have seen vigorous development of alternative, nonperturbative tools for
handling strong electron-electron interactions.
I concentrate on two basic paradigms of strongly interacting (or con-
strained) quantum systems: the Hubbard model and the Heisenberg model.
These models are vehicles for fundamental concepts, such as effective Ha-
miltonians, variational ground states, spontaneous symmetry breaking, and
quantum disorder. In addition, they are used as test grounds for various
nonperturbative approximation schemes that have found applications in
diverse areas of theoretical physics.
The level of the text should be appropriate for a graduate student with
some background in solid state physics (single electron theory) and fa-
miliarity with second quantization. The exercises vary in difficulty and
complement the text with specific examples and corollaries. Some of the
mathematical background material is relegated to the appendices.
lowe most to the relentless efforts of Maxim Raykin, Moshe Havilio and
Ziad Musslimani, whose careful proofreading weeded out inconsistencies
and helped clarify numerous points. I am also heavily indebted to Duncan
Haldane, who introduced me to quantum magnetism, and to my friend
lfor a graduate course on Quantum Many Particle Systems given at Boston
University and at the Technion during 1990-1993.
viii Preface
and colleague, Dan Arovas, who taught me about parent Hamiltonians,
the single mode approximation, and many other things,2 and for his critical
comments. I am grateful for the support of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation,
which enabled me to complete this book.
Assa Auerbach
Haifa, 1997
2including the use of phantom daggers.
Contents
Preface vii
I Basic Models 1
1 Electron Interactions in Solids 3
1.1 Single Electron Theory. . . . 3
1.2 Fields and Interactions . . . . 4
1.3 Magnitude of Interactions in Metals 6
1.4 Effective Models 7
1.5 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2 Spin Exchange 11
2.1 Ferromagnetic Exchange. 11
2.2 Antiferromagnetic Exchange . 13
2.3 Superexchange 16
2.4 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3 The Hubbard Model and Its Descendants 21
3.1 Truncating the Interactions . 22
3.2 At Large U: The t-J Model . . . . . . . . . 25
3.3 The Negative-U Model . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.3.1 The Pseudo-spin Model and Superconductivity 30
3.4 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
II Wave Functions and Correlations 37
4 Ground States of the Hubbard Model 39
4.1 Variational Magnetic States .. 40
4.2 Some Ground State Theorems. 45
4.3 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
5 Ground States of the Heisenberg Model 51
5.1 The Antiferromagnet . . . . . . 52
5.2 Half-Odd Integer Spin Chains . . . . . . . 56
x Contents
5.3 Exercises 59
6 Disorder in Low Dimensions 61
6.1 Spontaneously Broken Symmetry 61
6.2 Mermin and Wagner's Theorem. 62
6.3 Quantum Disorder at T = 0 66
6.4 Exercises 68
7 Spin Representations 69
7.1 Holstein-Primakoff Bosons . 69
7.2 Schwinger Bosons. . . 70
7.2.1 Spin Rotations 72
7.3 Spin Coherent States. 72
7.3.1 The () Integrals 75
7.4 Exercises . . . . . . . 75
8 Variational Wave Functions and Parent Hamiltonians 79
8.1 Valence Bond States . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
8.2 S = ~ States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
8.2.1 The Majumdar-Ghosh Hamiltonian 83
8.2.2 Square Lattice RVB States . . . . . 84
8.3 Valence Bond Solids and AKLT Models .. 85
8.3.1 Correlations in Valence Bond Solids 87
8.4 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
9 From Ground States to Excitations 93
9.1 The Single Mode Approximation 94
9.2 Goldstone Modes . . . . . . . . . 95
9.3 The Haldane Gap and the SMA. 96
III Path Integral Approximations 99
10 The Spin Path Integral 101
10.1 Construction of the Path Integral. 101
10.1.1 The Green's Function . 105
10.2 The Large S Expansion . . . . 106
10.2.1 Semiclassical Dynamics 107
10.2.2 Semiclassical Spectrum 109
10.3 Exercises ....... . 110
11 Spin Wave Theory 113
11.1 Spin Waves: Path Integral Approach 113
11.1.1 The Ferromagnet . . . . . . . 118
11.1.2 The Antiferromagnet . . . . . 119
11.2 Spin Waves: Holstein-Primakoff Approach 120
Contents xi
11.2.1 The Ferromagnet . . . 121
11.2.2 The Antiferromagnet . 123
11.3 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . 126
12 The Continuum Approximation 129
12.1 Haldane's Mapping . . . . . . 130
12.2 The Continuum Hamiltonian . 131
12.3 The Kinetic Term . . . . . . . . 133
12.4 Partition Function and Correlations 133
12.5 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
13 Nonlinear Sigma Model: Weak Coupling 139
13.1 The Lattice Regularization . 139
13.2 Weak Coupling Expansion . . 141
13.3 Poor Man's Renormalization 142
13.4 The (3 Function . 147
13.5 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . 150
14 The Nonlinear Sigma Model: Large N 153
14.1 The Cpl Formulation . . . 153
14.2 CpN-l Models at Large N 155
14.3 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . 157
15 Quantum Antiferromagnets: Continuum Results 159
15.1 One Dimension, the e Term. 159
15.2 One Dimension, Integer Spins 162
15.3 Two Dimensions . . . . . 163
16 SU(N) Heisenberg Models 165
16.1 Ferromagnet, Schwinger Bosons . 166
16.2 Antiferromagnet, Schwinger Bosons . . . 167
16.3 Antiferromagnet, Constrained Fermions 168
16.4 The Generating Functional . . . . . . . 169
16.5 The Hubbard-Stratonovich Transformation 171
16.6 Correlation Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
17 The Large N Expansion 175
17.1 Fluctuations and Gauge Fields 176
17.2 liN Expansion Diagrams .. . 178
17.3 Sum Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
17.3.1 Absence of Charge Fluctuations 182
17.3.2 On-Site Spin Fluctuations . 183
17.4 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
xii Contents
18 Schwinger Bosons Mean Field Theory 181
18.1 The Case of the Ferromagnet 187
18.1.1 One Dimension . . . . . . 191
18.1.2 Two Dimensions . . . . . 192
18.2 The Case of the Antiferromagnet 194
18.2.1 Long-Range Antiferromagnetic Order 198
18.2.2 One Dimension . 200
18.2.3 Two Dimensions 201
18.3 Exercises . . . . . . . . 203
19 The Semiclassical Theory of the t - J Model 205
19.1 Schwinger Bosons and Slave Fermions 206
19.2 Spin-Hole Coherent States . . . . . . . . 207
19.3 The Classical Theory: Small Polarons 211
19.4 Polaron Dynamics and Spin Tunneling. 214
19.5 The t' - J Model . . . . . . 218
19.5.1 Superconductivity? 220
19.6 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . 221
IV Mathematical Appendices 223
Appendix A
Second Quantization 225
A.1 Fock States . . . . . . . . . . 225
A.2 Normal Bilinear Operators .. 226
A.3 Noninteracting Hamiltonians 227
A.4 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Appendix B
Linear Response and Generating Functionals 231
B.1 Spin Response Function . . . 231
B.2 Fluctuations and Dissipation 233
B.3 The Generating Functional . 233
Appendix C
Bose and Fermi Coherent States 231
C.1 Complex Integration . 237
C.2 Grassmann Variables . 237
C.3 Coherent States. 239
C.4 Exercises . . . . . . . 240
Appendix D
Coherent State Path Integrals 241
D.1 Constructing the Path Integral 241
D.2 Normal Bilinear Hamiltonians. 242
D.3 Matsubara Representation . 244
D.4 Matsubara Sums . . . . . . . . 244
Contents xiii
Do5 Exercises 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 246
Appendix E
The Method of Steepest Descents 249
Index 253
