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arXiv:0705.0152 · Physical Review Letters

Criticality in Inhomogeneous Magnetic Systems: Application to Quantum Ferromagnets

D. Belitz, T. R. Kirkpatrick, Ronojoy Saha

Published Oct 2, 2007• 4 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We consider a phi4 theory with a position-dependent distance from the critical point. One realization of this model is a classical ferromagnet subject to nonuniform mechanical stress. We find a sharp phase transition where the envelope of the local magnetization vanishes uniformly. The first-order transition in a quantum ferromagnet also remains sharp. The universal mechanism leading to a tricritical point in an itinerant quantum ferromagnet is suppressed, and in principle, one can recover a quantum critical point with mean-field exponents. Observable consequences of these results are discussed.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.99.147203

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We consider a phi4 theory with a position-dependent distance from the critical point. One realization of this model is a classical ferromagnet subject to nonuniform mechanical stress. We find a sharp phase transition where the envelope of the local magnetization vanishes uniformly. The first-order transition in a quantum ferromagnet also remains sharp. The universal mechanism leading to a tricritical point in an itinerant quantum ferromagnet is suppressed, and in principle, one can recover a quantum critical point with mean-field exponents. Observable consequences of these results are discussed.
We describe the quantum phase transitions in the ferromagnetic Dicke-Ising model using a Landau theory approach. The theory quantitatively captures the change from a second- to a first-order transition between the normal and superradiant phases through a tricritical point. We identify virtual nearest-neighbor double spin-flip processes as the crucial mechanism responsible for this behavior. The tricritical point constitutes a quantum phase transition above the upper critical dimension. We discuss the modifications to finite-size scaling required for the correct interpretation of numerical data at the tricritical point. Our results emphasize the need for adapted finite-size scaling forms in all-to-all interacting quantum systems and establish the ferromagnetic Dicke-Ising model as a paradigmatic platform for quantum phase transitions above the upper critical dimension, encompassing both standard φ4φ^4φ4 criticality and beyond.
Quantum phase transition arises in general as second order phase transition at zero temperature, tuned by a non-thermal parameter such as pressure, doping or a magnetic field. The point in the phase diagram of the material in which different phases meet is called a quantum critical point (QCP). Physics around QCPs are of extensive current interest because the critical quantum fluctuations influence the physical properties in a wide temperature range (quantum criticality), and are believed to be responsible for many emergent physical properties such as non-Fermi liquids and unconventional superconductivity. In this research we explore dynamics and thermodynamics near QCPs via investigating three classes of models, which all have real material correspondence. Specifically first, we study local dynamics in a perturbed quantum critical Ising chain with E8 symmetry, where we show the local dynamical spin susceptibility has a singular dependence on frequency, but differs from the diffusion form. The nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) relaxation rate at low temperatures depends exponentially on the inverse temperature, whose prefactor we also determine. We propose NMR experiments as a means to further test the applicability of the E8 description for CoNb2O6. Second, we investigate the thermodynamic properties of itinerant ferromagnets near quantum critical points, described by the quantum Landau-Ginzburg theory. We provide a regularized perturbative renormalization group procedure to calculate the free energy. We further carry out numerical calculations on thermodynamic quantities, capturing not only the leading critical behaviors, but also the subleading and nonsingular contributions. We demonstrate various thermodynamic signatures of quantum criticality, including the entropy accumulation effect and the divergence of the specific heat coefficient. A detailed comparison to the recent experimental results on an itinerant ferromagnet Sr3Ru2O7 is also presented. Third, we explore Ising-nematic and magnetic phases and their transitions in iso-electronically doped iron pnictides by carrying out a large-N study of an effective low-energy Ginzburg-Landau model for these systems. We demonstrate that the magnetic and Ising orders transitions are concurrent at zero temperature, and both transitions are weakly first-order, which is consistent with RG-based prediction and experimental observations.
Relations between critical exponents, or scaling laws, at both continuous and discontinuous quantum phase transitions are derived and discussed. In general there are multiple dynamical exponents at these transitions, which complicates the scaling description. Some rigorous inequalities are derived, and the conditions needed for these inequalities to be equalities are discussed. Scaling laws involving the specific-heat exponents that are specific to quantum phase transitions are derived and contrasted with their counterparts at classical phase transitions. We also generalize the ideas of Fisher and Berker and others for applying (finite-size) scaling theory near a classical first-order transition to the quantum case. We then apply and illustrate all of these ideas by using the quantum ferromagnetic phase transition in metals as an explicit example. This transition is known to have multiple dynamical scaling exponents, and in general it is discontinuous in clean systems but continuous in disordered ones. Furthermore, it displays many experimentally relevant crossover phenomena that can be described in terms of fixed points, originally discussed by Hertz, that ultimately become unstable asymptotically close to the transition and give way to the asymptotic fixed points. These fixed points provide a rich environment for illustrating the general scaling concepts and exponent relations. We also discuss the quantum-wing critical point at the tips of the tricritical wings associated with the discontinuous quantum ferromagnetic transition from a scaling point of view.
A comprehensive theory of the quantum phase transition in clean itinerant Heisenberg ferromagnets is presented. It is shown that the standard mean-field description of the transition is invalid in spatial dimensions d< 3d<~3d< 3 due to the existence of soft particle-hole excitations that couple to the order parameter fluctuations and lead to an upper critical dimension dc+=3.{d}_{\mathrm{c}\mathrm{}}^{+}=3.dc+​=3. A generalized mean-field theory that takes these additional modes into account predicts a fluctuation-induced first-order transition. In a certain parameter regime, this first-order transition in turn is unstable with respect to a fluctuation-induced second-order transition. The quantum ferromagnetic transition may thus be either of first or of second order, in agreement with experimental observations. A detailed discussion is given of the stability of the first-order transition and of the critical behavior at the fluctuation-induced second-order transition. In d=3,d=3,d=3, the latter is mean field like with logarithmic corrections to scaling, and in d<3d<3d<3 it can be controlled by means of a $3\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\epsilon}$ expansion.
The effects of quenched disorder on the critical properties of itinerant quantum antiferromagnets and ferromagnets are considered. Particular attention is paid to locally ordered spatial regions that are formed in the presence of quenched disorder even when the bulk system is still in the paramagnetic phase. These rare regions or local moments are reflected in the existence of spatially inhomogeneous saddle points of the Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson functional. We derive an effective theory that takes into account small fluctuations around all of these saddle points. The resulting free energy functional contains a new term in addition to those obtained within the conventional perturbative approach, and it comprises what would be considered nonperturbative effects within the latter. A renormalization group analysis shows that in the case of antiferromagnets, the previously found critical fixed point is unstable with respect to this new term, and that no stable critical fixed point exists at one-loop order. This is contrasted with the case of itinerant ferromagnets, where we find that the previously found critical behavior is unaffected by the rare regions due to an effective long-ranged interaction between the order parameter fluctuations.
In this work we use field-theoretic and renormalization-group methods to study the finite-temperature ferromagnetic phase transition in the three-dimensional Hubbard model. We show that the nature of the ferromagnetic transition may strongly depend on the constraint imposed on the system. For example, if the system is allowed to exchange particles with a reservoir, the stability criterion for the occurrence of a continuous phase transition can be calculated using the mean-field approximation. On the other hand, if the total charge is conserved and charge- and spin-density fluctuations are considered in the theory, a different criterion, quite distinct from the mean-field one, is found, resulting in a fluctuation-induced renormalized Heisenberg tricritical point. The tricritical behavior is studied by calculating the one-loop renormalized free energy and using scaling analysis to determine the tricritical exponents. Finally, the exact solution of the model in the spherical limit and near the ferromagnetic transition is presented, in which case no fluctuation-induced tricritical point is found.