Method to Characterize Spinons as Emergent Elementary Particles
Journal Article

Published: Monday, October 03, 2011
arXiv.org: 1107.1439
AIP Permalink: http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v107/i15/e157201

Authors (2 total): Y. Tang, A. W. Sandvik

Abstract:

We develop a technique to directly study spinons (emergent spin S = 1/2 particles) in quantum spin models in any number of dimensions. The size of a spinon wave packet and of a bound pair (a triplon) are defined in terms of wave-function overlaps that can be evaluated by quantum Monte Carlo simulations. We show that the same information is contained in the spin-spin correlation function as well. We illustrate the method in one dimension. We confirm that spinons are well defined particles (have exponentially localized wave packet) in a valence-bond-solid state, are marginally defined (with power-law shaped wave packet) in the standard Heisenberg critical state, and are not well defined in an ordered N\'eel state (achieved in one dimension using long-range interactions).