Thermodynamics of the S=1 spin ladder as a composite S=2 chain model

A special class of S = 1 spin ladder Hamiltonians, with second-neighbor exchange interactions and with anisotropies in the z-direction, can be mapped onto one-dimensional composite S = 2 (tetrahedral S = 1) models. We calculate the high temperature expansion of the Helmoltz free energy for the latter class of models, and show that their magnetization behaves closely to that of standard XXZ models with a suitable effective spin S-eff, such that S-eff(1+S-eff)=< S-i(2)> where S-i refers to the components of spin in the composite model. It is also shown that the specific heat per site of the composite model, on the other hand, can be very different from that of the effective spin model, depending on the parameters of the Hamiltonian. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.