We consider the spin-$1/2$ Heisenberg chain with boundary magnetic fields and analyze it using a combination of Bethe ansatz and density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) techniques. We show that the system exhibits several different ground states, which depend on the orientation of the boundary magnetic fields. When both the boundary fields take equal values greater than a critical field strength, each edge in the ground state accumulates a fractional spin which saturates to spin $1/4$, which is similar to systems exhibiting symmetry protected topological phases (SPT). Unlike in SPT systems, the fractional boundary spin in the Heisenberg spin chain is not a genuine quantum number since the variance of the associated operator does not vanish, this is due to the absence of a bulk gap. The system exhibits high-energy bound states when the boundary fields take values greater than the critical field. All the excitations in the system can be sorted out into towers whose number depends on the number of bound states exhibited by the system. As the boundary fields are varied, in addition to the ground-state phase transition, we find that the system may undergo a boundary eigenstate phase transition (BEPT) where the number of towers of the Hilbert space changes. We further inquire how the EPT reflects itself on local ground-state properties by computing the magnetization profile $\langle S_j^z\rangle$ using DMRG. We identify a clear qualitative change from low edge fields to high edge fields when crossing the critical field. We though are unable to conclude on the basis of our data that EPT corresponds to a genuine phase transition in the ground state.

• Received 13 February 2023
• Revised 17 April 2023
• Accepted 2 June 2023

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.107.224412