Thermodynamics of a quantum Ising system coupled to a spin bath

We study the effect of coupling a spin-bath environment to a system which, at low energies, can be modeled as a quantum Ising system. A field theoretic formalism incorporating both thermal and quantum fluctuations is developed to derive results for the thermodynamic properties and response functions...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review. B 2018-06, Vol.97 (21), Article 214430
Main Authors: McKenzie, R. D., Stamp, P. C. E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Electron spin
Ising model
Nuclear spin
Phase transitions
Quantum phenomena
Response functions
Thermodynamic properties
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Summary:We study the effect of coupling a spin-bath environment to a system which, at low energies, can be modeled as a quantum Ising system. A field theoretic formalism incorporating both thermal and quantum fluctuations is developed to derive results for the thermodynamic properties and response functions, both for a toy model and for the LiHoF4 system, in which spin-8 electronic spins couple to a spin-7/2 nuclear spin bath: The phase transition then occurs in a system of electronuclear degrees of freedom, coupled by long-range dipolar interactions. The quantum Ising phase transition still exists, and one hybridized mode of the Ising and bath spins always goes soft at the transition.
ISSN:2469-9950
2469-9969
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevB.97.214430