Machine learning approach to study quantum phases of a frustrated one dimensional spin-1/2 system

Frustration driven quantum fluctuation leads to many exotic phases in the ground state and study of these quantum phase transitions is one of the most challenging areas of research in condensed matter physics. Here, a frustrated Heisenberg $J_1-J_2$ model of spin-1/2 chain with nearest exchange interaction $J_1$ and next nearest exchange interaction $J_2$ is studied using the principal component analysis (PCA) which is an unsupervised machine learning technique. In this method most probable spin configurations (MPSC) of ground-state (GS) and first excited state (FES) for different $J_2/J_1$ are used as the input in PCA to construct the co-variance matrix. The `quantified principal component' of the largest eigenvalue of co-variance matrix $p_1(J_2/J_1)$ is calculated and it is shown that the nature and variation of $p_1(J_2/J_1)$ can accurately predict the phase transitions and degeneracies in the GS. The $p_1(J_2/J_1)$ calculated from the MPSC of GS can only exhibit the signature of degeneracies in the GS, whereas, $p_1(J_2/J_1)$ calculated from MPSC of FES captures the gapless spin liquid (GSL)-dimer phase transition as well as all the degeneracies of the model system. We show that jump in $p_1(J_2/J_1)$ of FES at $J_2/J_1 \approx 0.241$, indicates the GSL-dimer phase transition, whereas its kinks give the signature of the GS degeneracies. The scatter plot of first two principal components of FES shows distinct band formation for different phases.
Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures