Quantum Magnetic Impurities in Magnetically Ordered Systems

Abstract

We discuss the problem of a spin 1/2 impurity immersed in a spin S magnetically ordered background. We show that the problem maps onto a generalization of the dissipative two level system (DTLS) with two independent heat baths, associated with the Goldstone modes of the magnet, that couple to different components of the impurity spin operator. Using analytical perturbative renormalization group (RG) methods and accurate numerical renormalization group (NRG) we show that contrary to other dissipative models there is quantum frustration of decoherence and quasi-scaling even in the strong coupling regime. We make predictions for the behavior of the impurity magnetic susceptibility that can be measured in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments. Our results may also have relevance to quantum computation.