Spinons and helimagnons in the frustrated Heisenberg chain

Abstract

We investigate the dynamical spin structure factor S(q,w) for the Heisenberg chain with ferromagnetic nearest (J1<0) and antiferromagnetic next-nearest (J2>0) neighbor exchange using bosonization and a time-dependent density-matrix renormalization group algorithm. For |J1|<< J2 and low energies we analytically find and numerically confirm two spinon branches with different velocities and different spectral weights. Following the evolution of S(q,w) with decreasing J1/J2 we find that helimagnons develop at high energies just before entering the ferromagnetic phase. Furthermore, we show that a recent interpretation of neutron scattering data for LiCuVO4 in terms of two weakly coupled antiferromagnetic chains (|J_1|<< J2) is not viable. We demonstrate that the data are instead fully consistent with a dominant ferromagnetic coupling, J1/J2 ~ -2.