Spinon statistics in integrable spin-S Heisenberg chains

TL;DR

This paper characterizes the spectrum of integrable spin-S Heisenberg chains using spin-1/2 spinons, revealing their role as quasi-particles with non-Abelian statistics in related conformal field theories.

Contribution

It introduces effective distribution functions for spinons in finite systems, extending Haldane's exclusion principle to non-Abelian quasi-particles in integrable models.

Findings

Spinons form a basis for the spectrum of spin-S chains.

Effective distribution functions generalize exclusion statistics.

Spinons exhibit non-Abelian exchange statistics.

Abstract

The spectrum of the integrable spin-S Heisenberg chains is completely characterized in terms of spin-1/2 spinons. In the continuum limit they form a quasi-particle basis to the higher level SU(2) Wess-Zumino-Witten (WZW) models. Enumerating the spinon states in finite systems we obtain effective single particle distribution functions for these objects which generalize Haldane's generalized exclusion principle to quasi-particles with non-Abelian exchange statistics.