Local spin description of fermions on a lattice

TL;DR

This paper introduces a local transformation from fermionic operators to spin matrices on a lattice, generalizing the Jordan-Wigner transformation to higher dimensions, and provides a method to impose constraints for an equivalent spin description.

Contribution

A novel local transformation scheme for fermions on a lattice to spin matrices that extends beyond one dimension, including a systematic approach to impose and solve constraints.

Findings

Transformation matches Jordan-Wigner in 1D

Constraints are explicitly constructed and solved

Eigenenergies agree with fermionic formulas

Abstract

A local transformation from fermionic operators to spin matrices is proposed and studied in this work. For this purpose, a system of fermions on a lattice is considered and one applies the scheme to replace the fermionic variables with spin matrices, while the transformation relates only those fermionic/spin operators which are assigned to nearby lattice sites. In one dimension, this proposal yields the same result as the well-known Jordan-Wigner transformation, while not being restricted to $d=1$ dimension. To obtain the equivalent description in the spin picture, one needs to impose constraints on the spin space. Since finding the reduced spin Hilbert space constitutes a substantial stage of the whole procedure, the constraints are paid particular attention. The full set of necessary constraints is determined in both representations. To approach the task to solve the constraints, a suitable basis is constructed. The introduction of the basis in the spin representation along with the construction of the constraints and the Hamiltonian in this basis show how the transformation proposed in this work can be applied to obtain observables in the spin picture. Explicit construction of the constraints in the basis allows one to solve them and, once the basis vectors of the reduced spin Hilbert space are found, the spin Hamiltonian is expressed in this basis and diagonalized. The constraints are constructed in the basis as discussed above and analyzed with the Wolfram Mathematica programs for lattice sizes $3\times3$, $4\times3$ and $4\times4$. Their mutual relations are determined and the reduced spin Hilbert space is specified. The Hamiltonian is constructed in this representation and diagonalized. It is verified that the eigenenergies obtained in the spin picture agree with the analytic formulas from the fermionic representation.