Spin-wave theory at constant order parameter

Abstract

We derive the low-temperature properties of spin-S quantum Heisenberg magnets from the Gibbs free energy G(M) for fixed order parameter M. Assuming that the low-lying elementary excitations of the system are renormalized spin waves, we show that a straightforward 1/S expansion of G(M) yields qualitatively correct results for the low-temperature thermodynamics, even in the absence of long-range magnetic order. We explicitly calculate the two-loop correction to the susceptibility of the ferromagnetic Heisenberg chain and show that it quantitatively modifies the mean-field result.