Spin-density functional for exchange anisotropic Heisenberg model

Ground-state energies for antiferromagnetic Heisenberg models with exchange anisotropy are estimated by means of a local-spin approximation made in the context of the density functional theory. Correlation energy is obtained using the non-linear spin–wave theory for homogeneous systems from which the spin functional is built. Although applicable to chains of any size, the results are shown for small number of sites, to exhibit finite-size effects and allow comparison with exact-numerical data from direct diagonalization of small chains.