Finite-size behaviour of the microcanonical specific heat

Abstract

For models which exhibit a continuous phase transition in the thermodynamic limit a numerical study of small systems reveals a non-monotonic behaviour of the microcanonical specific heat as a function of the system size. This is in contrast to a treatment in the canonical ensemble where the maximum of the specific heat increases monotonically with the size of the system. A phenomenological theory is developed which permits to describe this peculiar behaviour of the microcanonical specific heat and allows in principle the determination of microcanonical critical exponents.

15 pages, 7 figures, submitted to J. Phys. A

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• Quantum Confinement and Negative Heat Capacity
• Squeezed ensemble for systems with first-order phase transitions
• Critical properties of the spherical model in the microcanonical formalism
• The density of states of classical spin systems with continuous degrees of freedom
• Configurational density of states and melting of simple solids
• A Microcanonical Inflection Point Analysis via Parametric Curves and its Relation to the Zeros of the Partition Function