The role of dynamical magnetoelastic coupling in spin-Peierls chains is investigated by numerical and analytical techniques. We show that a Heisenberg spin chain coupled to dynamical optical phonons exhibits a transition towards a spontaneously dimerized state in a wide range of parameter space. The low-energy excitations are characterized as solitons. No binding between solitons occurs in the isolated spin-phonon chain and the dynamical spin structure factor shows a broad magnon dispersion. However, elastic interchain coupling can lead to the formation of bound states.

• Received 9 June 1998

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.58.9110