English

Ground States of Heisenberg Spin Clusters from Projected Hartree-Fock Theory

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2022-02-09 v1

Abstract

We apply Projected Hartree-Fock theory (PHF) for approximating ground states of Heisenberg spin clusters. Spin-rotational, point-group and complex-conjugation symmetry are variationally restored from a broken-symmetry mean-field reference, where the latter corresponds to a product of local spin states. A fermionic formulation of the Heisenberg model furnishes a conceptual connection to PHF applications in quantum chemistry and detailed equations for a self-consistent field optimization of the reference state are provided. Different PHF variants are benchmarked for ground-state energies and spin-pair correlation functions of antiferromagnetic spin rings and three different polyhedra, with various values of the local spin-quantum number s. The low computational cost and the compact wave-function representation make PHF a promising complement to existing approaches for ground states of molecular spin clusters, particularly for large s and moderately large N. The present work may also motivate future explorations of more accurate post-PHF methods for Heisenberg spin clusters.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2109.08041,
  title  = {Ground States of Heisenberg Spin Clusters from Projected Hartree-Fock Theory},
  author = {Shadan Ghassemi Tabrizi and Carlos A. Jiménez-Hoyos},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2109.08041},
  year   = {2022}
}