Strongly reduced gap in the zigzag spin chain with a ferromagnetic interchain coupling

Abstract

We study a spin 1/2 Heisenberg zigzag spin chain model near decoupled two chains. Taking into account a symmetry breaking perturbation, we discuss the existence of an energy gap in the ferromagnetic interchain coupling as well as the antiferromagnetic one. In the ferromagnetic model, a marginally relevant fixed line reduces the gap strongly, so that the correlation length becomes an astronomical length scale even in order 1 coupling. This result agrees with density matrix renormalization group results.