Delta chain with ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic interactions at the critical point

Abstract

We investigate the spin-1/2 Heisenberg model on the delta chain (sawtooth chain) with ferromagnetic nearest-neighbor and antiferromagnetic next-neighbor interactions. For a special ratio between these interactions there is a class of exact ground states formed by localized magnons and the ground state is macroscopically degenerate. The degree of this degeneration is found analytically. It is shown that the residual entropy per spin is ${s}_{0}=\frac{1}{2}ln\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}2$. An important feature of this model is a sharp decrease of the gaps for excited states with an increase of the number of magnons. These excitations give an essential contribution to the low-temperature thermodynamics. The corresponding thermodynamic quantities are calculated using full exact diagonalization of finite chains up to $N=22$. The behavior of the considered model is compared with that of the delta chain with both antiferromagnetic interactions.