Strange correlations in spin-1 Heisenberg antiferromagnets

摘要

We study the behavior of the recently proposed "strange correlator" [Phys.Rev. Lett. {\bf 112}, 247202 (2014)] in spin-1 Heisenberg antiferromagneticchains with uniaxial single-ion anisotropy. Using projective quantum MonteCarlo, we are able to directly access the strange correlator in a variety ofphases, as well as to examine its critical behavior at the quantum phasetransition between trivial and non-trivial symmetry protected topologicalphases. After finding the expected long-range behavior in these two symmetryconserving phases, we go on to verify the topological nature of two-leg andthree-leg spin-1 Heisenberg antiferromagnetic ladders. This demonstrates thepower of the strange correlator in distinguishing between trivial andnon-trivial symmetry protected topological phases.