Rotational modes in molecular magnets with antiferromagnetic Heisenberg exchange

Abstract

In an effort to understand the low-temperature behavior of recently synthesized molecular magnets, we present numerical evidence for the existence of a rotational band in systems of quantum spins interacting with nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic Heisenberg exchange. While this result has previously been noted for ring arrays with an even number of spin sites, we find that it also applies for rings with an odd number of sites as well as for all of the polytope configurations we have investigated (tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, icosahedron, triangular prism, and axially truncated icosahedron). It is demonstrated how the rotational band levels can, in many cases, be accurately predicted using the underlying sublattice structure of the spin array. We illustrate how the characteristics of the rotational band can provide valuable estimates for the low-temperature magnetic susceptibility.