Abstract
For coupled-dimer Heisenberg magnets, a paradigm of magnetic quantum phase transitions, we develop a systematic expansion in , the inverse number of space dimensions. The expansion employs a formulation of the bond-operator technique and is based on the observation that a suitably chosen product-state wave function yields exact zero-temperature expectation values of local observables in the limit, with corrections vanishing as . We demonstrate the approach for a model of dimers on a hypercubic lattice, which generalizes the square-lattice bilayer Heisenberg model to arbitrary . In this paper, we use the expansion to calculate static and dynamic observables at zero temperature in the paramagnetic singlet phase, up to the quantum phase transition, and compare the results with numerical data available for . Contact is also made with previously proposed refinements of bond-operator theory as well as with a perturbative expansion in the interdimer coupling. In a companion paper, the present expansion will be extended to the ordered phase, where it is shown to consistently describe the entire phase diagram including the quantum critical point.
2 More- Received 5 August 2014
- Revised 2 February 2015
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.91.094404
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