A novel quasi-exactly solvable spin chain with nearest-neighbors interactions

In this paper we study a novel spin chain with nearest-neighbors interactions depending on the sites coordinates, which in some sense is intermediate between the Heisenberg chain and the spin chains of Haldane-Shastry type. We show that when the number of spins is sufficiently large both the density of sites and the strength of the interaction between consecutive spins follow the Gaussian law. We develop an extension of the standard freezing trick argument that enables us to exactly compute a certain number of eigenvalues and their corresponding eigenfunctions. The eigenvalues thus computed are all integers, and in fact our numerical studies evidence that these are the only integer eigenvalues of the chain under consideration. This fact suggests that this chain can be regarded as a finite-dimensional analog of the class of quasi-exactly solvable Schrodinger operators, which has been extensively studied in the last two decades. We have applied the method of moments to study some statistical properties of the chain's spectrum, showing in particular that the density of eigenvalues follows a Wigner-like law. Finally, we emphasize that, unlike the original freezing trick, the extension thereof developed in this paper can be applied to spin chains whose associated dynamical spin model is only quasi-exactly solvable. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.