Quasiclassical Hamiltonians for large-spin systems

Abstract

We propose a method for obtaining effective classical Hamiltonians \cal H for many-body quantum spin systems with large spins. This method uses the coherent-state representation of the partition function Z and the cumulant expansion in powers of 1/S. For the quantum Hamiltonian \hat H of a Heisenberg form, the 1/S corrections in \cal H have a non-Heisenberg many-spin form. The effective Hamiltonian \cal H can be treated by methods familiar for classical systems. The non-Heisenberg terms in \cal H may be responsible for such effects as spin-Peierls transition and uplifting of the classical degeneracy by quantum fluctuations.