Bethe strings in the dynamical structure factor of the spin-1/2 Heisenberg XXX chain

TL;DR

This paper investigates the role of Bethe strings in the dynamical structure factors of the spin-1/2 Heisenberg XXX chain in a magnetic field, providing analytical line-shape formulas and analyzing spectral contributions in the thermodynamic limit.

Contribution

It extends previous finite-size studies to the thermodynamic limit and derives analytical expressions for the spectral line shapes near singularities involving Bethe strings.

Findings

Bethe strings contribute to gapped continua in dynamical spectra.

Their contribution to zz structure factor diminishes with increasing spin density.

Analytical line-shape formulas are provided near spectral singularities.

Abstract

Recently there has been a renewed interest in the spectra and role in dynamical properties of excited states of the spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnetic chain in longitudinal magnetic fields associated with Bethe strings. The latter are bound states of elementary magnetic excitations described by Bethe-ansatz complex non-real rapidities. Previous studies on this problem referred to finite-size systems. Here we consider the thermodynamic limit and study it for the isotropic spin-1/2 Heisenberg XXX chain in a longitudinal magnetic field. We confirm that also in that limit the most significant spectral weight contribution from Bethe strings leads to gapped continua in the spectra of the spin +- and xx dynamical structure factors. The contribution of Bethe strings to the zz dynamical structure factor is found to be small at low spin densities and to become negligible upon increasing that density above 0.317. For the -+ dynamical structure factor, that contribution is found to be negligible at finite magnetic field. We derive analytical expressions for the line shapes of the +-, xx, and zz dynamical structure factors valid in the vicinity of singularities located at and just above the gapped lower thresholds of the Bethe-string states's spectra. As a side result and in order to provide an overall physical picture that includes the relative location of all spectra with a significant amount of spectral weight, we revisit the general problem of the line-shape of the transverse and longitudinal spin dynamical structure factors at finite magnetic field and excitation energies in the vicinity of other singularities. This includes those located at and just above the lower thresholds of the spectra that stem from excited states described by only real Bethe-ansatz rapidities.