Magnetic Phase Diagram of the Ferromagnetically Stacked Triangular XY Antiferromagnet: A Finite-Size Scaling Study

Abstract

Histogram Monte-Carlo simulation results are presented for the magnetic-field -- temperature phase diagram of the XY model on a stacked triangular lattice with antiferromagnetic intraplane and ferromagnetic interplane interactions. Finite-size scaling results at the various transition boundaries are consistent with expectations based on symmetry arguments. Although a molecular-field treatment of the Hamiltonian fails to reproduce the correct structure for the phase diagram, it is demonstrated that a phenomenological Landau-type free-energy model contains all the esstential features. These results serve to complement and extend our earlier work [Phys. Rev. B {\bf 48}, 3840 (1993)].

5 pages (RevTex 3.0), 6 figures available upon request, CRPS 93-4