Magnetic phase diagram of a frustrated spin ladder

Abstract

Frustrated spin ladders show magnetization plateaux depending on the rung-exchange interaction and frustration defined by the ratio of first and second neighbor exchange interactions in each chain. This paper reports on its magnetic phase diagram. Using the variational matrix-product state method, we accurately determine phase boundaries. Several kinds of magnetization plateaux are induced by the frustration and the strong correlation among quasiparticles on a lattice. The appropriate description of quasiparticles and their relevant interactions are changed by a magnetic field. We find that the frustration differentiates the triplet quasiparticle from the singlet one in kinetic energy.