Spin-wave theory for dimerized ferromagnetic chains

Abstract

We describe a Peierls dimerization which occurs in ferromagnetic spin chains at finite temperature, within the modified spin-wave theory. Usual spin-wave theory is modified by introducing a Lagrange multiplier which enforces a nonmagnetic state at finite temperature. It is shown that this method gives results in excellent agreement with the density--matrix renormalization group applied to transfer matrices for dimerized ferromagnetic chains. We study bond correlation functions and explore the characteristic features of dimerization in the specific heat.