Spin chains and vertex models based on superalgebras

Abstract

The thermodynamic limit of superspin chains can show several intriguing properties, including the emergence of continua of scaling dimensions and the appearance of discrete states when imposing toroidal boundary conditions. Nevertheless, the former’s exhaustive characterization in terms of Conformal Field Theories is still lacking. In order to study the thermodynamic limit of the U_q[sl(2|1)] 3 ⊗ 3̄ superspin chain in the antiferromagnetic regime, we analyze the low lying excitations by means of the model’s exact solution using the Algebraic Bethe Ansatz. In the isotropic limit, this model may be used as a toy model for the description of plateau transitions in Quantum Hall systems. The definition of a quasimomentum operator allows for a characterization of the continua of scaling dimensions, thereby giving rise to a quantum number for the corresponding non-compact component of the spectrum in the thermodynamic limit. The associated degeneracies are lifted on the lattice by logarithmic fine structures. Based on the extrapolation of our finite size data we find that under a variation of the boundary conditions from periodic to antiperiodic for the fermionic degrees of freedom, levels from the continuous part of the spectrum flow into discrete levels and vice versa. Investigating the thermodynamic limit of the q-deformed osp(3|2) superspin chain, corresponding to an intersecting loop model in the rational limit, we seek to uncover its low-lying critical exponents. We present evidences that the latter are built in terms of composites of anomalous dimensions of two Coulomb gases with distinct radii and exponents associated to Z(2) degrees of freedom. This view is supported by the fact that the S = 1 XXZ integrable chain spectrum is present in some of the sectors of the superspin chain at a particular value of the deformation parameter. We find that the fine structure of finite-size effects is very rich for a typical anisotropic spin chain. In fact, we argue on the existence of a family of states with the same conformal dimension whose lattice degeneracies are lifted by logarithmic corrections. On the other hand, we also report on states of the spectrum whose finite-size corrections seem to be governed by a power law behaviour. We finally observe that under toroidal boundary conditions the ground state dependence on the twist angle has two distinct analytical structures.