Emergent Ising degrees of freedom in frustrated two-leg ladder and bilayer $s=1/2$ Heisenberg antiferromagnets

Abstract: Based on exact diagonalization data for finite quantum Heisenberg antiferromagnets on two frustrated lattices (two-leg ladder and bilayer) and analytical arguments we map low-energy degrees of freedom of the spin models in a magnetic field on classical lattice-gas models. Further we use transfer-matrix calculations and classical Monte Carlo simulations to give a quantitative description of low-temperature thermodynamics of the quantum spin models. The classical lattice-gas model yields an excellent description of the quantum spin models up to quite large temperatures. The main peculiarity of the considered frustrated bilayer is a phase transition which occurs at low temperatures for a wide range of magnetic fields below the saturation magnetic field and belongs to the two-dimensional Ising model universality class.