288 Ch.

6 Heisenberg Magnets

Repeating the previous procedure, we find that ?if' is diagonalized by

a second set of bosonic operators

pk = u k d k - vkc-k
t

P kt -- -21kc-k + u k d kt (6.80)

[(Yk,&] = [ a k , &I0, and

= is the same as in (6.79).
xk
Re-expressing 'Hf) and 'Rf' with the new operators requires using
the inverse formulas
t
c k = U k a k i- vkp-k ck = u k a kt f VkP-k

d k = UkPk + v k a -tk d i = Uk&t + Vka-k . (6.81)

The transformation brings N O to a form which is diagonal in the

occupation number representation of the a-, and P-bosons. We find

(6.82)
Since all boson energies

are non-negative, the boson vacuum is the ground state".

The linearized Hamiltonian can be rewritten as

= EO + c w k ( a i a k -k P i f l k ) (6.84)
k

where the k-sum gives the total energy of the antiferromagnetic magnons.
The magnon spectrum is twofold degenerate. We can understand this
"This is the vacuum of a- and 0-bosons, not of c- and d-bosons, thus it contains
many spin-flips with respect to the NBel-state! Since linearized spin wave theory does
not amount to an exact implementation of the Holstein-Primakoff transformation,
we have to worry about the possibility that the ground state contains components
from the non-physical part of the enlarged bosonic Hilbert space. Well, it does, but
it can be argued [42, 2131 that in spite of this shortcoming spin wave theory gives
surprisingly good results, so we leave it at that.