Work

Triple critical point and emerging temperature scales in SU(N) ferromagnetism at large N

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: The non-Abelian ferromagnet recently introduced by the authors, consisting of atoms in the fundamental representation of S U ( N ) , is studied in the limit where N becomes large and scales as the square root of the number of atoms n . This model exhibits additional phases, as well as two different temperature scales related by a factor N / ln ⁡ N . The paramagnetic phase splits into a “dense” and a “dilute” phase, separated by a third-order transition and leading to a triple critical point in the scale parameter n / N 2 and the temperature, while the ferromagnetic phase exhibits additional structure, and a new paramagnetic-ferromagnetic metastable phase appears at the larger temperature scale. These phases can coexist, becoming stable or metastable as temperature varies. A generalized model in which the number of S U ( N ) -equivalent states enters the partition function with a nontrivial weight, relevant, e.g., when there is gauge invariance in the system, is also studied and shown to manifest similar phases, the dense-dilute phase transition becoming second-order in the fully gauge invariant case.

Source: Nuclear Physics B

DOI: 10.1016/j.nuclphysb.2024.116748

Authors: Alexios P. Polychronakos, Konstantinos Sfetsos

Institutions: The Graduate Center, CUNY, City College of New York, City University of New York, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

Language: English

Topic: Theoretical and Computational Physics

Subfield: Condensed Matter Physics

Field: Physics and Astronomy

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: diamond