Physical review. B, Condensed matter
Phase transitions in finite systems with O(n) symmetry: Magnetization and susceptibility in the presence of an external field
Surjit Singh, Raj K. Pathria
Abstract
A scaling hypothesis is set up for the magnetization m(T,H;L) and susceptibility \ensuremath{\chi}(T,H;L) of a finite-sized system, with O(n) symmetry (n\ensuremath{\ge}2), confined to geometry ${\mathit{L}}^{\mathit{d}\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}\mathit{d}\mathcal{'}}$\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\infty}}}^{\mathit{d}\mathcal{'}}$(2d4,d'\ensuremath{\le}2) and subjected to periodic boundary conditions. Finite-size effects in both m and \ensuremath{\chi} are predicted, in the region of the first-order phase transition (T${T}_{c}$) as well as in the region of the second-order phase transition (T\ensuremath{\simeq}${T}_{c}$), for different regimes of the parameters H and L. To test these predictions, a detailed analytical study is carried out in the case of the spherical model of ferromagnetism (n=\ensuremath{\infty}), and all predictions based on the scaling hypothesis are seen to be fully borne out.