Quantum spin transport in paramagnetic systems

Abstract

We have studied the transport of magnetization and energy in systems of spins 1/2 on a lattice at high temperature. This work was motivated by recent experiments which observed "spin diffusion" among the dipolar coupled nuclear spins of the insulator calcium fluoride, under conditions where it was appropriate to neglect the coupling to any heat reservoir. The dynamics under these conditions is coherent and reversible, yet signatures of irreversibility (i.e. diffusion) are typically observed. This state of affairs poses a formidable conceptual puzzle. In this thesis we present both phenomenological and microscopic models of spin diffusion, retaining the important aspects of statistical approaches to transport while incorporating relevant quantum effects. These methods allow an efficient calculation of energy diffusion for a long- range interaction, which has largely been an intractable problem. We study transport in two different limits, that where the XY term of the spin Hamiltonian is dominant, and that where it can be treated as a perturbation compared to the Ising term. In the case of dipolar couping, both limits are found to show slightly more rapid diffusion of inter spin energy than magnetization, in qualitative agreement with experiments.