Coupled cluster theory of strongly correlated spin- and electron-lattice systems: An illustration via a model exhibiting competition between magnetic order and dimerization

The coupled cluster method (CCM) of microscopic quantum many-body theory has become an ab initio method of first choice in quantum chemistry and many fields of nuclear, subnuclear and condensed matter physics, when results of high accuracy are required. In recent years it has begun to be applied with equal success to strongly correlated systems of electrons or quantum spins defined on a regular spatial lattice. One regularly finds that the CCM is able to describe accurately the various zero-temperature phases and the quantum phase transitions between them, even when frustration is present and other methods such as quantum Monte Carlo often fail. We illustrate the use and powerfulness of the method here by applying it to a square-lattice spin-half Heisenberg model where frustration is introduced by competing nearest neighbour bonds. The model exhibits the physically interesting phenomenon of competition between magnetic order and dimerization. Results obtained for the model with the CCM are compared with those found from spin-wave theory and from extrapolating the results of exact diagonalizations of small lattices. We show that the CCM is essentially unique among available methods in being able both to describe accurately all phases of this complex model and to provide accurate predictions of the various phase boundaries and the order of the corresponding transitions.