Past exam of the theoretical physics major option course of the University of Oxford / 2015 / 2

The negative sign of the exchange term and $J>0$ make this a Heisenberg ferromagnet. Each classical bond minimizes its energy when its two fixed-length spins are parallel. On the connected cubic lattice all ground states are therefore uniform:using length $S$ for the classical large-spin convention. Any two orientations are related by a common spatial rotation of every spin. The global spin-rotation symmetry is $SO(3)$, and a chosen direction retains its $SO(2)$ subgroup of rotations about that axis.

Spontaneous symmetry breaking means selecting one member of this continuous set in the thermodynamic limit, for example by taking volume to infinity before sending an aligning field to zero. The zero-field Hamiltonian operator remains rotationally invariant even though the selected state is not. There are gapless transverse spin waves. Although two rotation generators are broken, an isotropic ferromagnet has one quadratic magnon branch, whose two transverse spin components form a conjugate dynamical pair. It is not necessary to invent two independent linear-dispersion branches from the number of broken generators. The long-wavelength dispersion is derived in d.

The field term explicitly selects the positive $x$ direction. For $B>0$ the uniform minimizing state is ${\mathbf{S}}_j=S\hat{\mathbf{x}}$, with no remaining continuous degeneracy of its orientation. Rotations about the $x$ axis still leave the Hamiltonian operator invariant, and the selected state respects that residual symmetry.

Tilting the magnetization now costs a field energy. Accordingly the transverse spin wave acquires a gapas confirmed directly in d. The factor $S$ is present because the source couples the field as $-BS{\sum }_j{S}_j^x$ rather than $-B{\sum }_j{S}_j^x$. Gapless zero-field Goldstone modes need not survive an explicit symmetry-breaking field.

For a local spin quantized along its positive $\tilde{z}$ axis, the exact Holstein–Primakoff transformation isThe bosonic operators obey $[a_j,a_k^{†}]={\delta }_{jk}$. The physical local subspace is $0\le n_j\le 2S$; the larger unconstrained boson Fock space is not itself the finite spin Hilbert space. The ordering of the square roots matters, since $n_j$ does not commute with $a_j$.

This represents spin lowering using a bosonic creation operator, making a fully polarized spin state the boson vacuum. On the physical subspace it reproduces the spin commutators and the Casimir ${\tilde{\mathbf{S}}}_j^2=S(S+1)$. Expanding the square roots for small occupation relative to $S$ organizes a controlled large-$S$ linear spin-wave approximation; it is not an assumption that a spin has an infinite number of physical levels.

Quantize along the selected field direction by the right-handed relabeling ${\tilde{S}}^z=S^x$, ${\tilde{S}}^x=S^y$, ${\tilde{S}}^y=S^z$. Then the exact Holstein–Primakoff transformation in c gives $S_j^x=S-n_j$. Keep exchange terms of order $S^2$ and $S$, with $J$ and the printed $B$ held fixed. For a nearest-neighbor bond,On a periodic cubic lattice with $N$ sites and spacing $a$, there are $3N$ undirected bonds. Consequently,Use the unitary lattice Fourier transform $a_j=N^{-1/2}{\sum }_{\mathbf{k}}{e}^{i\mathbf{k}\cdot {\mathbf{r}}_j}{a}_{\mathbf{k}}$. Each positive lattice direction contributes $2(1-\cos k_{\alpha }a)$, so the Hamiltonian operator is already diagonal in momentum space:There are no anomalous $aa$ or $a^{†}{a}^{†}$ terms, so no Bogoliubov transformation or extra zero-point correction is needed. At long wavelengths,At $B=0$ this is the quadratic ferromagnetic Goldstone mode; for $B>0$ it is gapped by $BS$. Energies are written with $\hslash =1$; an excitation frequency is ${\omega }_{\mathbf{k}}={\epsilon }_{\mathbf{k}}/\hslash$. In this isotropic ferromagnet the fully aligned vacuum and its one-magnon dispersion are also exact; higher-magnon interactions are among the terms discarded from the linear spin-wave Hamiltonian operator.

Choose the positive-$x$ polarized ground state selected by $B>0$, or its symmetry-selected $B\to 0^{+}$ limit. It is exactly the boson vacuum in the Holstein–Primakoff transformation. Thus $n_j|\mathrm{GS}⟩=0$ and $S_j^x=S-n_j$ giveFor the transverse components, $S^y=({\tilde{S}}^{+}+{\tilde{S}}^{-})/2$ and $S^z=({\tilde{S}}^{+}-{\tilde{S}}^{-})/(2i)$. In the vacuum, the only nonzero quadratic ladder-operator expectation iswhich follows using the full ordered square-root operators, or directly from ${\tilde{S}}^{-}|S,S⟩=\sqrt{2S}|S,S-1⟩$. ThereforeAn independent exact spin argument starts from $S_j^x|S,S{⟩}_x=S|S,S{⟩}_x$ and $(S_j^x{)}^2+(S_j^y{)}^2+(S_j^z{)}^2=S(S+1)$. Rotational invariance about $x$ makes the two transverse second moments equal, so each is $[S(S+1)-S^2]/2=S/2$. This agrees exactly with the full boson representation.

The first moments describe the local magnetization. Subtracting their squares from the second moments gives spin component variances: zero longitudinal variance and transverse variance $S/2$. Transverse quantum fluctuations persist in a perfectly polarized state even though its magnon occupation is zero. Their relative scale decreases as $S^{-1/2}$ in the classical limit.

At precisely $B=0$, “the ground state” requires a choice within the ferromagnetic multiplet. For example, when $NS$ is an integer, a maximum-total-spin state with total $x$ projection zero is also a ground state but has $⟨S_j^x⟩=0$. The displayed local moments refer to the explicitly specified polarized member, not to every superposition or rotationally invariant mixture of zero-field ground states.