Abstract
We consider the strongly anisotropic spin-1/2 XXZ model on the sawtooth-chain lattice with ferromagnetic longitudinal interaction Jzz = ΔJ and aniferromagnetic transversal interaction Jxx = Jyy = J > 0. At Δ = −1∕2 the lowest one-magnon excitation band is dispersionless (flat) leading to a massively degenerate set of ground states. Interestingly, this model admits a three-coloring representation of the ground-state manifold [H.J. Changlani et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 117202 (2018)]. We characterize this ground-state manifold and elaborate the low-temperature thermodynamics of the system. We illustrate the manifestation of the flat-band physics of the anisotropic model by comparison with two isotropic flat-band Heisenberg sawtooth chains. Our analytical consideration is complemented by exact diagonalization and finite-temperature Lanczos method calculations.
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Derzhko, O., Schnack, J., Dmitriev, D.V. et al. Flat-band physics in the spin-1/2 sawtooth chain. Eur. Phys. J. B 93, 161 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2020-10224-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2020-10224-1