2023/11/07 by Daniel Qvarngård, Qvarngård, Daniel, Patrik Henelius +1 · 1 citation
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Quasicrystal Structures and Properties #Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) #Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) #Theoretical and Computational Physics #X-ray Diffraction in Crystallography
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2311.03781
openalex publication_date 2023/11/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We study classical spin models on the 1/1 Tsai-type approximant lattice using Monte Carlo and mean-field methods. Our aim is to understand whether the phase diagram differences between Gd- and Tb-based approximants can be attributed to anisotropy induced by the crystal-electric field. To address this question, we treat Gd ions as Heisenberg spins and Tb ions as Ising spins. Additionally, we consider the presence of the RKKY interaction to replicate the experimentally observed correlation between magnetic properties and electron concentration. Surprisingly, our findings show that the transition between ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic order remains unaltered by the anisotropy, even when accounting for the dipole interaction. We conclude that a more comprehensive model, extending beyond the free-electron gas RKKY interaction, is likely required to fully understand the distinctions between Gd- and Tb-based approximants. Our work represents a systematic exploration of the impact of anisotropy on the ground-state properties of classical spin models in quasicrystal approximants.