Study on the critical properties of thin magnetic films using the clock model

T-L H Nguyen and V Thanh Ngo

Abstract

We study the critical behaviour of very thin magnetic films. This system can be described by the q-state clock model. In order to determine the critical exponents of the system when there exists the Berezinskii–Kosterlitz–Thouless phase between the two phase transitions, we introduce a new technique for calculating the order parameter. The simulation is performed by very high-resolution Monte Carlo method with including the Wang–Landau algorithm. The results showed that the Berezinskii–Kosterlitz–Thouless phase starts to occur when with a small symmetry breaking field. We obtained not only the critical exponents of a common transition at high temperature but also the ones of unclear transition at low temperature