Frustration Effects in Antiferromagnetic FCC Heisenberg Films

Abstract

We study the effects of frustration in an antiferromagnetic film of FCC lattice with Heisenberg spin model including an Ising-like anisotropy. Monte Carlo (MC) simulations have been used to study thermodynamic properties of the film. We show that the presence of the surface reduces the ground state (GS) degeneracy found in the bulk. The GS is shown to depend on the surface in-plane interaction $J_s$ with a critical value at which ordering of type I coexists with ordering of type II. Near this value a reentrant phase is found. Various physical quantities such as layer magnetizations and layer susceptibilities are shown and discussed. The nature of the phase transition is also studied by histogram technique. We have also used the Green's function (GF) method for the quantum counterpart model. The results at low-$T$ show interesting effects of quantum fluctuations. Results obtained by the GF method at high $T$ are compared to those of MC simulations. A good agreement is observed.

arXiv comment11 pages, 19 figures, submitted to J. Phys.: Condensed Matter

References in corpus (5)

• The Theory of Boundary Critical Phenomena
• Field-induced magnetic reorientation and effective anisotropy of a ferromagnetic monolayer within spin wave theory
• Monte Carlo study of first-order transition in Heisenberg fcc antiferromagnet
• Effects of Frustrated Surface in Heisenberg Thin Films
• Histogram Monte Carlo study of next-nearest-neighbor Ising antiferromagnet on a stacked triangular lattice

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Quantum Theory of Helimagnetic Thin Films
• Theory of magnons in spin systems with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction
• Phase transition in frustrated thin films -- physics at phase boundaries
• Crossover from First to Second-Order Transition in Frustrated Ising Antiferromagnetic Films
• Re-orientation Transition in Molecular Thin Films: Potts Model with Dipolar Interaction
• Quantum Spin-Wave Theory for non-collinear Spin Structures, a Review
• Effect of Dipolar Interaction in Molecular Crystals