A quaternionic map for the steady states of the Heisenberg spin-chain

We show that the steady states of the classical Heisenberg XXX spin-chain in an external magnetic field can be found by iterations of a quaternionic map. A restricted model, e.g., the xy spin-chain is known to have spatially chaotic steady states and the phase space occupied by these chaotic states is known to go through discrete changes as the field strength is varied. The same phenomenon is studied for the xxx spin-chain. It is seen that in this model the phase space volume varies smoothly with the external field.