Abstract

It is shown that the phase transition in low-Tc clean itinerant ferromagnets is generically of first order, due to correlation effects that lead to a nonanalytic term in the free energy. A tricritical point separates the line of first order transitions from Heisenberg critical behavior at higher temperatures. Sufficiently strong quenched disorder suppresses the first order transition via the appearance of a critical end point. A semiquantitative discussion is given in terms of recent experiments on MnSi, and predictions for other experiments are made.

Department(s)

Physics

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

0031-9007

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Final Version

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 1999 American Physical Society (APS), All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Jun 1999

Included in

Physics Commons

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