Thermodynamics of frustrated ferromagnetic spin-$1/2$ Heisenberg chains: The role of inter-chain coupling

Abstract

The thermodynamics of coupled frustrated ferromagnetic chains is studied within a spin-rotation-invariant Green's function approach. We consider an isotropic Heisenberg spin-half system with a ferromagnetic in-chain coupling $J_1<0$ between nearest neighbors and a frustrating antiferromagnetic next-nearest neighbor in-chain coupling $J_2>0$. We focus on moderate strength of frustration $J_2<|J_1|/4$ such that the in-chain spin-spin correlations are predominantly ferromagnetic. We consider two inter-chain couplings (ICs) $J_{\perp ,y}$ and $J_{\perp ,z}$, corresponding to the two axis perpendicular to the chain, where ferromagnetic as well as antiferromagnetic ICs are taken into account. We discuss the influence of frustration on the ground-state properties for antiferromagnetic ICs, where the ground state is of quantum nature. The major part of our study is devoted to the finite-temperature properties. We calculate the critical temperature $T_c$ as a function of the competing exchange couplings $J_2,J_{\perp ,y},J_{\perp ,z}$. We find that for fixed ICs $T_c$ monotonically decreases with increasing frustration $J_2$, where as $J_2\to |J_1|/4$ the $T_c(J_2)$-curve drops down rapidly. To characterize the magnetic ordering below and above $T_c$ we calculate the spin-spin correlation functions $⟨{\mathbf{S}}_0{\mathbf{S}}_{\mathbf{R}}⟩$, the magnetic order parameter $M$, the uniform static susceptibility ${\chi }_0$ as well as the correlation length $\xi$. Moreover, we discuss the specific heat $C_V$ and the temperature dependence of the excitation spectrum ${\omega }_{\mathbf{q}}$. As $J_2\to |J_1|/4$ some unusual frustration-induced features were found, such as an increase of the in-chain spin stiffness (in case of ferromagnetic ICs) or of the in-chain spin-wave velocity (in case of antiferromagnetic ICs) with growing temperature.