Ground states of a frustrated quantum spin chain with long-range interactions

Abstract

The ground state of a spin-1/2 Heisenberg chain with both frustration and long-range interactions is studied using Lanczos exact diagonalization. The evolution of the well-known dimerization transition of the system with short-range frustrated interactions (the J1-J2 chain) is investigated in the presence of additional unfrustrated interactions decaying with distance as 1/r(alpha). It is shown that the continuous (infinite-order) dimerization transition develops into a first-order transition between a long-range ordered antiferromagnetic state and a state with coexisting dimerization and critical spin correlations at wave number k=pi/2. The relevance of the model to real systems is discussed.