Vigorous thermal excitations in a double-tetrahedral chain of localized Ising spins and mobile electrons mimic a temperature-driven first-order phase transition

Lucia Gálisová and Jozef Strečka
Phys. Rev. E 91, 022134 – Published 24 February 2015

Abstract

A hybrid spin-electron system defined on a one-dimensional double-tetrahedral chain, in which the localized Ising spin regularly alternates with two mobile electrons delocalized over a triangular plaquette, is exactly solved with the help of generalized decoration-iteration transformation. It is shown that a macroscopic degeneracy of ferromagnetic and ferrimagnetic ground states arising from chiral degrees of freedom of the mobile electrons cannot be lifted by a magnetic field in contrast to a macroscopic degeneracy of the frustrated ground state, which appears due to a kinetically driven frustration of the localized Ising spins. An anomalous behavior of all basic thermodynamic quantities can be observed on account of massive thermal excitations, which mimic a temperature-driven first-order phase transition from the nondegenerate frustrated state to the highly degenerate ferrimagnetic state at nonzero magnetic fields. A substantial difference in the respective degeneracies is responsible for an immense low-temperature peak of the specific heat and very abrupt (almost discontinuous) thermal variations of the entropy and sublattice magnetizations.

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  • Received 2 October 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.91.022134

©2015 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Lucia Gálisová1,* and Jozef Strečka2,†

  • 1Department of Applied Mathematics and Informatics, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Technical University, Letná 9, 042 00 Košice, Slovak Republic
  • 2Department of Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics, Faculty of Science, P. J. Šafárik University, Park Angelinum 9, 040 01, Košice, Slovak Republic

  • *galisova.lucia@gmail.com
  • jozef.strecka@upjs.sk

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Vol. 91, Iss. 2 — February 2015

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