Frustration and intermediate dimerized phase in spin ladder system

This paper studies a spin ladder model which possesses frustrating interactions. By using both the bosonization and the density matrix renormalization group techniques, it shows that the intermediate columnar dimerized phase, which exists in a narrow parameter region of the so-called J₁-J₂ model, vanishes if the interchain frustration is weak and anisotropic. Therefore, it concludes that the frustrating interaction indeed plays an important role in producing such a phase. As a complementary to our previous investigation, it reaches a more complete picture of the quantum phase transition in the frustrated spin ladder systems.