Many-body Keldysh Crossover in the DC-driven Haldane Spin Chain

Abstract

We theoretically study nonlinear processes driven by a DC spin-electric field in the antiferromagnetic spin-1 Heisenberg model starting from the ground state in the Haldane phase. The DC spin-electric field generates finite spin current and accumulation since the symmetry protected topological order is destroyed by the field. We find two microscopic mechanisms responsible for the breakdown and a crossover between them: In weak fields, tripron-antitripron pair creation occurs through the tunneling mechanism, and in strong fields, the system is described by an effective Hamiltonian breaking the protecting symmetries. We analyze the numerically obtained results in terms of the Dykhne--Davis--Pechukas theory and Floquet theory, verifying the universal picture of the many-body Keldysh crossover in the DC-driven quantum spin systems.