Physical review. B, Condensed matter
Field distributions and tricritical points in a random-field Ising model: Mean-field renormalization-group approach
A.S. de Arruda, W. Figueiredo, Rafael M. Sebastianes, V. K. Saxena
Abstract
The form of the field distribution, in a random-field Ising model, is known to play an important role in determining the order of the phase transition and the existence of a tricritical point. We have studied a random-field Ising model with a trimodal distribution (sum of three \ensuremath{\delta} functions), which simulates a Gaussian distribution for a certain range of its parameters, within the mean-field renormalization-group scheme. We have considered clusters of one, two, and four spins, and the recursion relations for the determination of the fixed points are numerically analyzed. Using this analysis we have constructed the phase diagram of the system in the space of coupling (K), field (h), and zero-field probability (p). It is shown that the line of tricritical points ends for values of p near (2/3, very different from that obtained in the usual mean-field approximation. Mean-field renormalization-group (p\ensuremath{\simeq}(2/3) results are found to be consistent with the equivalence of the trimodal and Gaussian (absence of tricritical points) distributions until the fourth-order moments for p=(2/3.