The One-Dimensional ANNNI model in a Transverse Field: Analytic and numerical study of Effective Hamiltonians

We consider a spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ chain with competing nearest and next-nearest neighbor interactions within a transverse magnetic field, which is known to be an equiavelent to the ANNNI model. When studing thermodynamics of the 2D ANNNI model Villain and Bak arrived to a free fermion approximation that neglects heavy excitations from the ferromagnetic ground state, which is an appropriate description close to the paramagnetic-ferromagnetic transition. In the vicinity of the floating-phase/anti-phase transition another sort of quasiparticles, but free fermions too, appears to be convenient. Although free fermions are a suitable tool for investigation of the phase diagram and the critical properties, they are defined on the fictitious lattice which makes the analysis non-rigorous. Here we deal with a proper fermion scheme which is especially effective %devised to describe the floating-phase/anti-phase transition. for performing exact diagonalization calculations for cyclic chains. Systems up to size $L=32$ has been analysed and the predictions of the effective fermion Hamiltonian has been confirmed. Various predictions for the infinite system and the critical properties are derived.