Topological phases of spin-1/2 ferromagnetic-antiferromagnetic alternating Heisenberg chains with alternating next-nearest-neighbour interaction

A series of symmetry-protected topological (SPT) and trivial spin-gap phases in the spin-1/2 ferromagnetic-antiferromagnetic alternating Heisenberg chain with alternating next-nearest-neighbour interaction are investigated using two kinds of entanglement spectra defined by different divisions of the whole chain. In case one of the next-nearest-neighbor interactions vanishes, the model reduces to the Δ-chain in which a series of spin-gap phases are found, as shown in J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 77, 044707 (2008). From the degeneracy of the entanglement spectra, these phases are identified as the SPT and trivial phases. It is found that the ground-state phase boundaries are insensitive to the strength of the alternation in the next-nearest-neighbor interaction. These results are consistent with the analysis based on the nonlinear σ model and exact solution on the ferromagnetic-nonmagnetic phase boundary. (author)