No Arabic abstract
We present thermal expansion alpha, magnetostriction and specific heat C measurements of tal, which shows a quantum phase transition from a spin-gap phase to a Neel-ordered ground state as a function of magnetic field around H_{C0}->4.8T. Using Ehrenfests relation, we find huge pressure dependencies of the spin gap for uniaxial as well as for hydrostatic pressure. For T->0 and H->H_{C0} we observe a diverging Grueneisen parameter Gamma(T)=alpha/C, in qualitative agreement with theoretical predictions. However, the predicted individual temperature dependencies alpha(T) and C(T) are not reproduced by our experimental data.
In the vicinity of a quantum critical point, quenched disorder can lead to a quantum Griffiths phase, accompanied by an exotic power-law scaling with a continuously varying dynamical exponent that diverges in the zero-temperature limit. Here, we investigate a nematic quantum critical point in the iron-based superconductor FeSe$_{0.89}$S$_{0.11}$ using applied hydrostatic pressure. We report an unusual crossing of the magnetoresistivity isotherms in the non-superconducting normal state which features a continuously varying dynamical exponent over a large temperature range. We interpret our results in terms of a quantum Griffiths phase caused by nematic islands that result from the local distribution of Se and S atoms. At low temperatures, the Griffiths phase is masked by the emergence of a Fermi liquid phase due to a strong nematoelastic coupling and a Lifshitz transition that changes the topology of the Fermi surface.
I study a spin system consisting of strongly coupled dimers which are in turn weakly coupled in a plane by zigzag interactions. The model can be viewed as the strong-coupling limit of a two-dimensional zigzag chain structure typical, e.g., for the $(ac)$-planes of KCuCl_3. It is shown that the magnetization curve in this model has plateaus at 1/3 and 2/3 of the saturation magnetization, and an additional plateau at 1/2 can appear in a certain range of the model parameters; the critical fields are calculated perturbatively. It is argued that for the three-dimensional lattice structure of the KCuCl_3 family the plateaus at 1/4 and 3/4 of the saturation can be favored in a similar way, which might be relevant to the recent experiments on NH_4CuCl_3 by Shiramura et al., J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. {bf 67}, 1548 (1998).
The spin-Peierls transition is modeled in the dimer phase of the spin-$1/2$ chain with exchanges $J_1$, $J_2 = alpha J_1$ between first and second neighbors. The degenerate ground state generates an energy cusp that qualitatively changes the dimerization $delta(T)$ compared to Peierls systems with nondegenerate ground states. The parameters $J_1 = 160$ K, $alpha = 0.35$ plus a lattice stiffness account for the magnetic susceptibility of CuGeO$_3$, its specific heat anomaly, and the $T$ dependence of the lowest gap.
We explore the coexistence region in the vicinity of the Mott critical end point employing a compressible cell spin-$1/2$ Ising-like model. We analyze the case for the spin-liquid candidate $kappa$-(BEDT-TTF)$_2$Cu$_2$(CN)$_3$, where close to the Mott critical end point metallic puddles coexist with an insulating ferroelectric phase. Our results are fourfold: $i$) a universal divergent-like behavior of the Gruneisen parameter upon crossing the first-order transition line; $ii$) based on scaling arguments, we show that within the coexistence region, for $any$ system close to the critical point, the relaxation time is entropy-dependent; $iii$) we propose the electric Gruneisen parameter $Gamma_E$, which quantifies the electrocaloric effect; $iv$) we identify the metallic/insulating coexistence region as an electronic Griffiths-like phase. Our findings suggest that $Gamma_E$ governs the dielectric response close to the critical point and that an electronic Griffiths-like phase emerges in the coexistence region.
A high order series expansion is employed to study the thermodynamical properties of a S=1/2 chain coupled to dispersionless phonons. The results are obtained without truncating the phonon subspace since the series expansion is performed formally in the overall exchange coupling J. The results are used to investigate various parameter regimes, e.g. the adiabatic and antiadiabatic limit as well as the intermediate regime which is difficult to investigate by other methods. We find that dynamic phonon effects become manifest when more than one thermodynamic quantity is analyzed.