Determinant representations of spin-operator matrix elements in the XX spin chain and their applications

TL;DR

This paper derives determinant representations for spin-operator matrix elements in the XX spin chain, enabling analytical and numerical analysis of nonlinear optical responses and real-time dynamics in system-bath models.

Contribution

It introduces a fermionic approach to express spin-operator matrix elements as determinants, simplifying calculations and applications in physical models.

Findings

Determinant formulas for matrix elements in XX models derived

Analytical factorized expressions obtained for homogeneous periodic chains

Application to nonlinear optical responses and quantum dynamics in system-bath setups

Abstract

For the one-dimensional spin-1/2 XX model with either periodic or open boundary conditions, it is shown by using a fermionic approach that the matrix element of the spin operator $S^-_j$ ($S^-_{j}S^+_{j'}$) between two eigenstates with numbers of excitations $n$ and $n+1$ ($n$ and $n$) can be expressed as the determinant of an appropriate $(n+1)\times (n+1)$ matrix whose entries involve the coefficients of the canonical transformations diagonalizing the model. In the special case of a homogeneous periodic XX chain, the matrix element of $S^-_j$ reduces to a variant of the Cauchy determinant that can be evaluated analytically to yield a factorized expression. The obtained compact representations of these matrix elements are then applied to two physical scenarios: (i) Nonlinear optical response of molecular aggregates, for which the determinant representation of the transition dipole matrix elements between eigenstates provides a convenient way to calculate the third-order nonlinear responses for aggregates from small to large sizes compared with the optical wavelength, and (ii) real-time dynamics of an interacting Dicke model consisting of a single bosonic mode coupled to a one-dimensional XX spin bath. In this setup, full quantum calculation up to $N\leq 16$ spins for vanishing intrabath coupling shows that the decay of the reduced bosonic occupation number approaches a finite plateau value (in the long-time limit) that depends on the ratio between the number of excitations and the total number of spins. Our results can find useful applications in various "system-bath" systems, with the system part inhomogeneously coupled to an interacting XX chain.