Nonequilibrium tricritical behavior in anisotropic XY ferromagnet driven by elliptically polarized propagating magnetic field wave

Abstract

The three-dimensional anisotropic XY ferromagnet, driven by an elliptically polarized propagating magnetic field wave, has been extensively investigated by Monte Carlo simulation with the Metropolis single spin flip algorithm. Both the effects of the bilinear exchange type and the single-site anisotropies are thoroughly investigated. The time-averaged magnetization (over the complete cycle of the elliptically polarized propagating magnetic field wave) components play the role of the dynamic order parameter. For a fixed set of values of the strength of anisotropy and the field amplitudes, the system has been found to get dynamically ordered at a pseudocritical temperature. The pseudocritical temperature of such a dynamic nonequilibrium phase transition has been found to depend both on the strength of anisotropy and the amplitudes of the elliptically polarized propagating magnetic field wave. A comprehensive phase diagram is represented here in the form of an image plot of the pseudocritical temperature in the plane formed by the strength of anisotropy and field amplitudes. Interestingly, this nonequilibrium phase transition has been found to be discontinuous (first order) for higher values of the field amplitude. On the other hand, the continuous (second order) transition has been noticed for lower values of the field amplitude. Such an interesting nonequilibrium tricritical behavior has been observed in driven XY ferromagnet. The order of such a nonequilibrium phase transition has been confirmed by the thermal variation (near the transition) of the statistical distribution of the order parameter and by the thermal variation of the fourth-order Binder cumulant. In the plane formed by field amplitude and anisotropy, a tricritical line has been shown as the accompanying (and complementary) phase diagram. The dependence of the pseudocritical temperature, on the frequency and wavelength of the elliptically polarized propagating magnetic field wave, has also been reported.