Abstract
The zero-temperature properties of the SO(5) bilinear-biquadratic Heisenberg chain are investigated by means of a low-energy approach and large-scale numerical calculations. In sharp contrast to the spin-1 SO(3) Heisenberg chain, we show that the SO(5) Heisenberg chain is dimerized with a twofold degenerate ground state. On top of this gapful phase, we find the emergence of a nondegenerate gapped phase with hidden ( symmetry and spin-3/2 edge states that can be understood from a SO(5) AKLT wave function. We derive a low-energy theory describing the quantum critical point which separates these two gapped phases. It is shown and confirmed numerically that this quantum critical point belongs to the SO(5) universality class.
- Received 24 November 2010
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.83.060407
©2011 American Physical Society