Macroscopic quantum spin tunnelling with two interacting spins

Abstract: We study the simple Hamiltonian, $H=-K(S_{1z}^2 +S_{2z}^2)+ \lambda\vec S_1\cdot\vec S_2$, of two, large, coupled spins which are taken equal, each of total spin $s$ with $\lambda$ the exchange coupling constant. The exact ground state of this simple Hamiltonian is not known for an antiferromagnetic coupling corresponding to the $\lambda>0$. In the absence of the exchange interaction, the ground state is four fold degenerate, corresponding to the states where the individual spins are in their highest weight or lowest weight states, $|\hskip-1 mm\uparrow, \uparrow\rangle, |\hskip-1 mm\downarrow, \downarrow\rangle, |\hskip-1 mm\uparrow, \downarrow\rangle, |\hskip-1 mm\downarrow, \uparrow\rangle$, in obvious notation. The first two remain exact eigenstates of the full Hamiltonian. However, we show the that the two states $ |\hskip-1 mm\uparrow, \downarrow\rangle, |\hskip-1 mm\downarrow, \uparrow\rangle$ organize themselves into the combinations $|\pm\rangle=\frac{1}{\sqrt 2} (|\hskip-1 mm\uparrow, \downarrow\rangle \pm |\hskip-1 mm\downarrow \uparrow\rangle)$, up to perturbative corrections. For the anti-ferromagnetic case, we show that the ground state is non-degenerate, and we find the interesting result that for integer spins the ground state is $|+\rangle$, and the first excited state is the anti-symmetric combination $|-\rangle$ while for half odd integer spin, these roles are exactly reversed. The energy splitting however, is proportional to $\lambda^{2s}$, as expected by perturbation theory to the $2s^{\rm th}$ order. We obtain these results through the spin coherent state path integral.