Tuesday, March 20, 2012

1203.3826 (T. R. Kirkpatrick et al.)

Universal low-temperature tricritical point in metallic ferromagnets and
ferrimagnets
   [PDF]

T. R. Kirkpatrick, D. Belitz
An earlier theory of the quantum phase transition in metallic ferromagnets is revisited and generalized in three ways. It is shown that the mechanism that leads to a fluctuation-induced first-order transition in metallic ferromagnets with a low Curie temperature is valid, (1) irrespective of whether the magnetic moments are supplied by the conduction electrons or by electrons in another band, (2) for ferromagnets in the XY and Ising universality classes as well as for Heisenberg ferromagnets, and (3) for ferrimagnets as well as for ferromagnets. This vastly expands the class of materials for which a first-order transition at low temperatures is expected, and it explains why strongly anisotropic ferromagnets, such as UGe2, display a first-order transition as well as Heisenberg magnets.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.3826

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