Second order phase transitions induced by disorder in frustrated magnets

TL;DR

This paper investigates how disorder affects phase transitions in three-dimensional frustrated magnets, revealing a new universality class with second order transitions induced by impurities, contrasting the weakly first order transition in pure systems.

Contribution

It demonstrates that disorder induces a second order phase transition in frustrated magnets, establishing a new universality class and providing initial critical exponent estimates.

Findings

Disorder induces second order transitions in frustrated magnets.

Pure systems exhibit weakly first order transitions.

Critical exponents estimated using the effective average action.

Abstract

We study the critical properties of three dimensional frustrated magnets, diluted with non-magnetic impurities. We show that these systems exhibit a second order phase transition, corresponding to a new universality class. In the pure case, the phase transition is expected to be weakly of first order. We therefore argue that these frustrated systems can be used to study experimentally the rounding effect of disorder on discontinuous phase transitions. We give first estimates of the critical exponents associated with this universality class, by using the method of the effective average action.