Frustrations and phase transitions in magnets of various dimensionality

Abstract

We studied magnetic orderings, phase transitions, and frustrations in the Ising, 3-state Potts and standard 4-state Potts models on 1D, 2D, and 3D lattices: linear chain, square, triangular, kagome, honeycomb, and body-centered cubic. The main challenge was to find out the causes of frustrations phenomena and those features that distinguish frustrated system from not frustrated ones. The spins may interrelate with one another via the nearest-neighbor, the next-nearest-neighbor or higher-neighbor exchange interactions and via an external magnetic field that may be either competing or not. For problem solving we mainly calculated the entropy and specific heat using the rigorous analytical solutions for Kramers-Wannier transfer-matrix and exploiting computer simulation, par excellence, by Wang-Landau algorithm. Whether a system is ordered or frustrated is depend on the signs and values of exchange interactions. An external magnetic field may both favor the ordering of a system and create frustrations. With the help of calculations of the entropy, the specific heat and magnetic parameters, we obtained the points and ranges of frustrations, the frustration fields and the phase transition points. The results obtained also show that the same exchange interactions my either be competing or noncompeting which depends on the specific model and the lattice topology.