Quantum phase transitions of the asymmetric three-leg spin tube

Abstract

We investigate quantum phase transitions of the $S=\frac{1}{2}$ three-leg antiferromagnetic spin tube with asymmetric interchain (rung) exchange interactions. On the basis of the electron tube system, we propose a useful effective theory to give the global phase diagram of the asymmetric spin tube. In addition, using other effective theories we raise the reliability of the phase diagram. The density-matrix renormalization-group and the numerical diagonalization analyses show that the finite spin gap appears in a narrow region around the rung-symmetric line, in contrast to a recent paper by Nishimoto and Arikawa, [Phys. Rev. B 78, 054421 (2008)]. The numerical calculations indicate that this global phase diagram obtained by use of the effective theories is qualitatively correct. In the gapless phase on the phase diagram, the numerical data are fitted by a finite-size scaling in the $c=1$ conformal field theory. We argue that all the phase transitions between the gapful and gapless phases belong to the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless universality class.