Study of the ground state of the one-dimensional Heisenberg spin-1/2 chain

Abstract

We discuss the ground state of the Heisenberg spin-1/2 chain in one dimension, considering nearest neighbor interactions. In the thermodynamic limit the energy is calculated analytically in several ways. We start by applying the Bethe ansatz to calculate the exact ground state energy of the XXX Heisenberg model. Next we study small perturbations of the spin anisotropy, the parameter for the interaction in the z-direction for the XXZ model, by applying time-independent perturbation theory. In addition we expand an exact integral expression of the energy of the XXZ model around the spin anisotropy in the thermodynamic limit. The results are compared to numerical solutions, which are obtained by means of exact diagonalization up to twelve lattice sites. We find that for ten or more lattice sites the numerics agree well with the expectation from the analytical calculations. Finally the concept of integrability is discussed in the context of the Heisenberg model.