Phase Transitions with Discrete Symmetry Breaking in Antiferromagnetic Heisenberg Models on a Triangular Lattice

We study phase transition behavior of the Heisenberg model on a distorted triangular lattice with competing interactions. The ground-state phase diagram indicates that underlying symmetry can be changed by tuning parameters. We focus on two cases in which a phase transition with discrete symmetry breaking occurs. The first is that the order parameter space is SO(3)$\times C_3$. In this case, a first-order phase transition, with threefold symmetry breaking, occurs. The second has the order parameter space SO(3)$\times Z_2$. In this case, a second-order phase transition occurs with twofold symmetry breaking. To investigate finite-temperature properties of these phase transitions from a microscopic viewpoint, we introduce a method to make the connection between continuous frustrated spin systems and the Potts model with invisible states.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Complete phase diagram of the spin-1/2 J1J_{1}-J2J_{2}-J3J_{3} model (with J3=J2J_{3}=J_{2}) on the honeycomb lattice

We use the coupled cluster method to investigate the ground-state (GS) properties of the frustrated spin-1/2 $J_{1}$-$J_{2}$-$J_{3}$ model on the honeycomb lattice, with nearest-neighbor exchange coupling $J_1$ plus next-nearest-neighbor ($J_2$) and next-next-nearest-neighbor ($J_3$) exchanges of equal strength. In particular we find a direct first-order phase transition between the N\'eel-ordered antiferromagnetic phase and the ferromagnetic phase at a value $J_{2}/J_{1} = -1.17 \pm 0.01$ when $J_{1}>0$, compared to the corresponding classical value of -1. We find no evidence for any intermediate phase. From this and our previous CCM studies of the model we present its full zero-temperature GS phase diagram.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Magnetic phase diagram of spatially anisotropic, frustrated spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a stacked square lattice

Magnetic phase diagram of a spatially anisotropic, frustrated spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a stacked square lattice is investigated using second-order spin-wave expansion. The effects of interlayer coupling and the spatial anisotropy on the magnetic ordering of two ordered ground states are explicitly studied. It is shown that with increase in next nearest neighbor frustration the second-order corrections play a significant role in stabilizing the magnetization. We obtain two ordered magnetic phases (Neel and stripe) separated by a paramagnetic disordered phase. Within second-order spin-wave expansion we find that the width of the disordered phase diminishes with increase in the interlayer coupling or with decrease in spatial anisotropy but it does not disappear. Our obtained phase diagram differs significantly from the phase diagram obtained using linear spin-wave theory.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures, minor changes from previous versio

Zero temperature phases of the frustrated J1-J2 antiferromagnetic spin-1/2 Heisenberg model on a simple cubic lattice

At zero temperature magnetic phases of the quantum spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a simple cubic lattice with competing first and second neighbor exchanges (J1 and J2) is investigated using the non-linear spin wave theory. We find existence of two phases: a two sublattice Neel phase for small J2 (AF), and a collinear antiferromagnetic phase at large J2 (CAF). We obtain the sublattice magnetizations and ground state energies for the two phases and find that there exists a first order phase transition from the AF-phase to the CAF-phase at the critical transition point, pc = 0.28. Our results for the value of pc are in excellent agreement with results from Monte-Carlo simulations and variational spin wave theory. We also show that the quartic 1/S corrections due spin-wave interactions enhance the sublattice magnetization in both the phases which causes the intermediate paramagnetic phase predicted from linear spin wave theory to disappear.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures, Fig. 1b modified, Appendix B text modifie

Potts-Percolation-Gauss Model of a Solid

We study a statistical mechanics model of a solid. Neighboring atoms are connected by Hookian springs. If the energy is larger than a threshold the "spring" is more likely to fail, while if the energy is lower than the threshold the spring is more likely to be alive. The phase diagram and thermodynamic quantities, such as free energy, numbers of bonds and clusters, and their fluctuations, are determined using renormalization-group and Monte-Carlo techniques.Comment: 10 pages, 12 figure

DNA binding kinetics of two response regulators, PlnC and PlnD, from the bacteriocin regulon of Lactobacillus plantarum C11

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Bacteriocin production in the lactic acid bacterium <it>Lactobacillus plantarum </it>C11 is regulated through a quorum sensing based pathway involving two highly homologous response regulators (59% identity and 76% similarity), PlnC as a transcriptional activator and PlnD as a repressor. Previous <it>in vitro </it>studies have shown that both regulators bind, as homodimers, to the same DNA regulatory repeats to exert their regulatory functions. As the genes for these two proteins are located on the same auto-regulatory operon, hence being co-expressed upon gene activation, it is plausible that their opposite functions must somehow be differentially regulated, either in terms of timing and/or binding kinetics, so that their activities do not impair each other in an uncontrolled manner. To understand the nature behind this potential differentiation, we have studied the binding kinetics of the two regulators on five target promoters (P_{<it>plnA</it>}, P_{<it>plnM</it>}, P_{<it>plnJ</it>}, P_{<it>plnE </it>}and P_{<it>plnG</it>}) from the bacteriocin regulon of <it>L. plantarum </it>C11.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>By using surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy we obtained parameters such as association rates, dissociation rates and dissociation constants, showing that the two regulators indeed differ greatly from each other in terms of cooperative binding and binding strength to the different promoters. For instance, cooperativity is very strong for PlnC binding to the promoter of the regulatory operon (P_{<it>plnA</it>}), but not to the promoter of the transport operon (P_{<it>plnG</it>}), while the opposite is seen for PlnD binding to these two promoters. The estimated affinity constants indicate that PlnC can bind to P_{<it>plnA </it>}to activate transcription of the key regulatory operon <it>plnABCD </it>without much interference from PlnD, and that the repressive function of PlnD might act through a different mechanism than repression of the regulatory operon.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We have characterised the DNA binding kinetics of the two regulators PlnC and PlnD from the bacteriocin locus in <it>L. plantarum </it>C11. Our data show that PlnC and PlnD, despite their strong homology to each other, differ greatly from each other in terms of binding affinity and cooperativity to the different promoters of the <it>pln </it>regulon.</p

Static and dynamical quantum correlations in phases of an alternating field XY model

We investigate the static and dynamical patterns of entanglement in an anisotropic XY model with an alternating transverse magnetic field, which is equivalent to a two-component one-dimensional Fermi gas on a lattice, a system realizable with current technology. Apart from the antiferromagnetic and paramagnetic phases, the model possesses a dimer phase which is not present in the transverse XY model. At zero temperature, we find that the first derivative of bipartite entanglement can detect all the three phases. We analytically show that the model has a "factorization line" on the plane of system parameters, in which the zero temperature state is separable. Along with investigating the effect of temperature on entanglement in a phase plane, we also report a non-monotonic behavior of entanglement with respect to temperature in the anti-ferromagnetic and paramagnetic phases, which is surprisingly absent in the dimer phase. Since the time dynamics of entanglement in a realizable physical system plays an important role in quantum information processing tasks, the evolutions of entanglement at small as well as large time are examined. Consideration of large time behavior of entanglement helps us to prove that in this model, entanglement is always ergodic. We observe that other quantum correlation measures can qualitatively show similar features in zero and finite temperatures. However, unlike nearest-neighbor entanglement, the nearest-neighbor information theoretic measures can be both ergodic as well as non-ergodic, depending on the system parameters.Comment: 20 Pages, 13 Figures, 2 Tables, Published versio

Theory of Impurity Effects on the Spin Nematic State

The effect of magnetic bond disorder in otherwise antiferro nematic ordered system is investigated. We introduced triangular-shaped ferromagnetic bond disorder in the S=1 bilinear-biquadratic model on a triangular lattice. It is shown that the coupling between the impurity magnetic moment and nonmagnetic excitation in the bulk yields single-moment anisotropy and long-range anisotropic interaction between impurity magnetic moments. This interaction can induce unconventional spin-freezing phenomena observed in triangular magnet, NiGa2S4.Comment: 19 pages, 14 figure

Dynamical temperature study for classical planar spin systems

In this micro-canonical simulation the temperature and also the specific heat are determined as averages of expressions easy to implement. The XY-chain is studied for a test. The second order transition on a cubic lattice and the first order transition on an fcc lattice are analyzed in greater detail to have a more severe test about the feasibility of this micro-canonical method.Comment: 9 pages in Latex(revtex), 7 PS-figure