Quantum Griffiths effects in itinerant Heisenberg magnets

We study the influence of quenched disorder on quantum phase transitions in itinerant magnets with Heisenberg spin symmetry, paying particular attention to rare disorder fluctuations. In contrast to the Ising case where overdamping suppresses the tunneling of rare regions, the XY- and Heisenberg system displays strong power-law quantum Griffiths singularities in the vicinity of the quantum critical point. We discuss these phenomena based on general scaling arguments, and we illustrate them by an explicit calculation for O(N) spin symmetry in the large-N limit. We also discuss broad implications for the classification of quantum phase transitions in the presence of quenched disorder.