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Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 096401 (2003) [4 pages]

Quantum Magnetic Impurities in Magnetically Ordered Systems

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A. H. Castro Neto1, E. Novais1, L. Borda2,3, Gergely Zaránd2,4, and I. Affleck1
1Department of Physics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA
2Research Group of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Theoretical Physics Department, Technical University of Budapest, Budapest H-1521, Hungary
3Sektion Physik and Center for Nanoscience, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Theresienstrasse 37, 80333 München, Germany
4Lyman Physics Laboratory, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA

Received 27 March 2003; published 26 August 2003

We discuss the problem of a spin 1/2 impurity immersed in a spin S magnetically ordered background. We show that the problem maps onto a generalization of the dissipative two level system with two independent heat baths, associated with the Goldstone modes of the magnet, that couple to different components of the impurity spin operator. Using analytical perturbative renormalization group methods and accurate numerical renormalization group we show that contrary to other dissipative models there is quantum frustration of decoherence and quasiscaling even in the strong coupling regime. We make predictions for the behavior of the impurity magnetic susceptibility. Our results may also have relevance to quantum computation.

© 2003 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.91.096401
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.91.096401
PACS:
71.55.–i, 03.65.Yz, 03.67.Lx, 75.20.Hr