Spinon statistics in integrable spin-S Heisenberg chains

Abstract

The spectrum of the integrable spin-S Heisenberg chains is completely characterized in terms of spin-1/2 spinons. In the continuum limit they form a quasi-particle basis to the higher level SU(2) Wess-Zumino-Witten (WZW) models. Enumerating the spinon states in finite systems we obtain effective single particle distribution functions for these objects which generalize Haldane's generalized exclusion principle to quasi-particles with non-Abelian exchange statistics.