Magnetic structures in 1D spin chains with long-range RKKY and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions

Magnetic order in 1D magnetic chains has gained considerable interest in recent years. Absent in one dimensional systems with only short-range interaction (SRI), magnetic order is still possible if long-ange interaction (LRI) is present, without violating the celebrated Mermin-Wagner theorem. Indeed, interesting quantum phase transitions have been investigated in a Heisenberg chain with LRI [1]. We investigate the role of spin-orbit effects by considering spin-1/2 chains in the presence of both RKKY and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) LRIs. Our results show an interestingly rich phase diagram in which the system transitions from collinear to transverse magnetic correlated order as the ratio between RKKY and DM coupling strength changes. We analyze the new ground states and explore their possible physical implementation in different systems.

[1] A. W. Sandvik, PRL 104, 137204 (2010).