Spins coupled to a Spin Bath: From Integrability to Chaos

John Schliemann

Published 2009-02-19, updated 2010-01-14Version 2

Motivated by the hyperfine interaction of electron spins with surrounding nuclei, we investigate systems of central spins coupled to a bath of noninteracting spins in the framework of random matrix theory. With increasing number of central spins a transition from Poissonian statistics to the Gaussian orthogonal ensemble occurs which can be described by a generalized Brody distribution. These observations are unaltered upon applying an external magnetic field. In the transition region, the classical counterparts of the models studied have mixed phase space.