×

Zero point fluctuations for magnetic spirals and skyrmions, and the fate of the Casimir energy in the continuum limit. (English) Zbl 1404.81249

Summary: We study the role of zero-point quantum fluctuations in a range of magnetic states which on the classical level are close to spin-aligned ferromagnets. These include Skyrmion textures characterized by non-zero topological charge, and topologically-trivial spirals arising from the competition of the Heisenberg and Dzyaloshin-skii-Moriya interactions. For the former, we extend our previous results on quantum exactness of classical Bogomolny-Prasad-Sommerfield (BPS) ground-state degeneracies to the general case of Kähler manifolds, with a specific example of Grassmann manifolds Gr(M,N). These are relevant to quantum Hall ferromagnets with N internal states and integer filling factor M. A promising candidate for their experimental implementation is monolayer graphene with N = 4 corresponding to spin and valley degrees of freedom at the charge neutrality point with M = 2 filled Landau levels. We find that the vanishing of the zero-point fluctuations in taking the continuum limit occurs differently in the case of BPS states compared to the case of more general smooth textures, with the latter exhibiting more pronounced lattice effects. This motivates us to consider the vanishing of zero-point fluctuations in such near-ferromagnets more generally. We present a family of lattice spin models for which the vanishing of zero-point fluctuations is evident, and show that some spirals can be thought of as having nonzero but weak zero-point fluctuations on account of their closeness to this family. Between them, these instances provide concrete illustrations of how the Casimir energy, dependent on the full UV-structure of the theory, evolves as the continuum limit is taken.

MSC:

81T55 Casimir effect in quantum field theory
81V70 Many-body theory; quantum Hall effect
81R30 Coherent states

References:

[1] Douçot, B.; Kovrizhin, D.; Moessner, R., Phys. Rev., 93, 094426, (2016)
[2] Perelomov, A., Generalized Coherent States and Their Applications, (1986), Springer-Verlag Berlin · Zbl 0605.22013
[3] Witten, E.; Olive, D., Phys. Lett. B, 78, 97, (1978)
[4] Rajaraman, R., Solitons and Instantons, (1989), North-Holland · Zbl 0493.35074
[5] Arnold, V. I., Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics, (1989), Springer · Zbl 0692.70003
[6] Chaloupka, J.; Jackeli, G.; Khaliullin, G., Phys. Rev. Lett., 105, 027204, (2010)
[7] Blaizot, J. P.; Ripka, G., Quantum Theory of Finite Systems, (1986), MIT Press
[8] Haldane, F. D.M., Phys. Rev. Lett., 51, 605, (1983)
[9] Griffiths, P.; Harris, J., Principles of Algebraic Geometry, (1978), John Wiley and Sons: John Wiley and Sons New-York · Zbl 0408.14001
[10] Perelomov, A., Phys. Rep., 146, 135, (1987)
[11] Berezin, F. A., Izv. Akad. Nauk USSR Ser. Mat., 39, 363, (1975), English translation in Math. USSR Izvestija, Vol. 9, 1975, p. 341 · Zbl 0312.53050
[12] Berezin, F. A., Comm. Math. Phys., 63, 131, (1978) · Zbl 0413.58023
[13] Rowe, D. J.; Ryman, A. G., Phys. Rev. Lett., 45, 406, (1980)
[14] Fujii, K.; Kashiwa, T.; Sakoda, S., J. Math. Phys., 37, 567, (1996) · Zbl 0862.58009
[15] Berezin, F. A., Izv. Akad. Nauk USSR Ser. Mat., 38, 1116, (1974), English translation in Math. USSR Izvestija, Vol. 8, 1974, p. 1109 · Zbl 0312.53049
This reference list is based on information provided by the publisher or from digital mathematics libraries. Its items are heuristically matched to zbMATH identifiers and may contain data conversion errors. In some cases that data have been complemented/enhanced by data from zbMATH Open. This attempts to reflect the references listed in the original paper as accurately as possible without claiming completeness or a perfect matching.