Comment on "Disorder Induced Quantum Phase Transition in Random-Exchange Spin-1/2 Chains"

Abstract

We reconsider the random bond antiferromagnetic spin-1/2 chain for weak disorder and demonstrate the existence of crossover length scale x_W that diverges with decreasing strength of the disorder. Recent DMRG calculations [Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 127202 (2002); cond-mat/0111027] claimed to have found evidence for a non-universal behavior in this model and found no indications of a universal infinite randomness fixed point (IRFP) scenario. We show that these data are not in the asymptotic regime since the system sizes that have been considered are of the same order of magnitude or much smaller than the crossover length x_W. We give a scaling form for the xx-spin-correlation function that takes this crossover length into account and that is compatible with the IRFP scenario and a random singlet phase.