Doped Heisenberg chains: spin-S generalizations of the supersymmetric t-J model

Abstract

A family of exactly solvable models describing a spin-S Heisenberg chain doped with mobile spin-(S-1/2) carriers is constructed from gl(2|1)-invariant solutions of the Yang-Baxter equation. The models are generalizations of the supersymmetric t-J model which is obtained for S=1/2. We solve the model by means of the algebraic Bethe Ansatz and present results for the zero temperature and thermodynamic properties. At low temperatures the models show spin charge separation, i.e. contain contributions of a free bosonic theory in the charge sector and an SU(2)-invariant theory describing the magnetic excitations. For small carrier concentration the latter can be decomposed further into an SU(2) level-2S Wess-Zumino-Novikov-Witten model and the minimal unitary model M_p with p=2S+1.