Metastable behavior of the spin-s Ising and Blume-Capel ferromagnets: A Monte Carlo study.

Abstract

We present an extensive Monte Carlo investigation of the metastable lifetime through the reversal of the magnetization of spin-s Ising and Blume-Capel models, where s={1/2,1,3/2,2,5/2,3,7/2}. The mean metastable lifetime (or reversal time) is studied as a function of the applied magnetic field, and for both models it is found to obey the Becker-Döring theory, as was initially developed for the case of an s=1/2 Ising ferromagnet within the classical nucleation theory. Moreover, the decay of the metastable volume fraction nicely follows Avrami's law for all values of s and for both models considered.