Critical behavior of diluted Heisenberg ferromagnets with competing interactions

Abstract

The pure and the site-diluted classical Heisenberg model on the face centered cubic (fcc) lattice with ferromagnetic exchange J nn between nearest neighbors and antiferromagnetic exchange J nn = − J nn/2 between next nearest neighbors is studied by Monte Carlo simulation. Data are generated by the heat bath algorithm for lattice sizes L = 4, 8, 12, 16, 20 and 24, using histogram reweighting techniques and sampling up to several hundred configurations of the random site disorder. From a finite size scaling analysis both the critical temperature and the critical exponents are estimated. For the pure system, the data are in very good agreement with the critical exponent estimates 1/ v ≈ 1.42, β/ v ≈ 0.51 obtained from other methods (as a check of the accuracy of our approach, we also study the nearest neighbor model — where J nn ≡ 0− and again obtain very good agreement with the known behavior). However, for the diluted systems evidence for a new universality class is found. While for concentration c = 0.875 of occupied sites strong crossover phenomena preclude us from giving exponent estimates, for c = 0.75 we find 1/ v ≈ 1.2 and β/ v ≈ 0.45. Possible reasons why the Harris criterion may not apply for this system are discussed. The application of this study to experiments on Eu x Sr 1− x S is briefly mentioned.