Systems of particles in a confining potential exhibit a spatially dependent density which fundamentally alters the nature of phase transitions that occur. A specific instance of this situation, which is being extensively explored currently, concerns the properties of ultra-cold, optically trapped atoms. Of interest is how the superfluid-insulator transition is modified by the inhomogeneity, and, indeed, the extent to which a sharp transition survives at all. This paper explores a classical analog of these systems, the Blume-Capel model with a spatially varying single ion anisotropy and/or temperature gradient. We present results both for the nature of the critical properties and for the validity of the local density approximation which is often used to model the inhomogeneous case. We compare situations when the underlying uniform transition is first and second order.
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