Large peaks in the entropy of the diluted nearest-neighbor spin-ice model on the pyrochlore lattice in a [111] magnetic field

Petr Andriushchenko, Konstantin Soldatov, Alexey Peretyatko, Yuriy Shevchenko, Konstantin Nefedev, Hiromi Otsuka, Yutaka Okabe

Published 2021-08-10Version 1

We study the residual entropy of the nearest-neighbor spin-ice model in a magnetic field along the [111] direction using the Wang-Landau Monte Carlo method, with a special attention to dilution effects. For a diluted model, we observe a stepwise decrease of the residual entropy as a function of the magnetic field, which is consistent with the finding of the five magnetization plateaus in a previous replica-exchange Monte Carlo study by Peretyatko {\it et al.} [Phys. Rev. B {\bf 95}, 144410 (2017)]. We find large peaks of the residual entropy due to the degeneracy at the crossover magnetic fields, $h_c/J$ = 0, 3, 6, 9, and 12, where $h$ and $J$ are the magnetic field and the exchange coupling, respectively. In addition, we also study the residual entropy of the diluted antiferromagnetic Ising models in a magnetic field on the kagome and triangular lattices. We again observe large peaks of the residual entropy, which are associated with multiple magnetization plateaus for the diluted model. Finally, we discuss the interplay of dilution and magnetic fields in terms of the residual entropy.