Critical temperature and magnetic

properties of new 2D lattice model with

double hexagonal symmetry: Monte Carlo
study
Cite as: AIP Advances 12, 015004 (2022); https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0078052
Submitted: 09 November 2021 • Accepted: 10 December 2021 • Published Online: 04 January 2022

Sufyan Naji, Mohammad N. Murshed, M. A. Ahlam, et al.

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Critical temperature and magnetic properties

of new 2D lattice model with double hexagonal
symmetry: Monte Carlo study
Cite as: AIP Advances 12, 015004 (2022); doi: 10.1063/5.0078052
Submitted: 9 November 2021 • Accepted: 10 December 2021 •
Published Online: 4 January 2022

Sufyan Naji,1,a) Mohammad N. Murshed,1 , 2 M. A. Ahlam,1 , 3 Mohamed E. El Sayed,2 Ahmed Samir,2 , 4

and Adnan Dormosh1

AFFILIATIONS
1
Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Ibb University, Ibb, Yemen
2
Physics Department, Faculty of Science and Arts, King Khalid University, Muhayl Asser, Saudi Arabia
3
Department of Physics, College of Science and Arts at Al-Nabhania, Qassim University, Qassim, Saudi Arabia
4
Center of Plasma Technology, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt

a)
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: sufyan.naji@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
Here, we present a theoretical study of a new statistical lattice model based on a double hexagonal structure associated with G2 symmetry.
Using Monte Carlo simulation, we study the magnetic properties of the Ising-1/2 model with spin values σ = ±1 residing on the sites of our
double hexagonal lattice. In particular, we calculate and analyze the thermal behavior of the total and partial magnetizations as well as the
corresponding susceptibilities for different lattice sizes. The present study shows that the total and partial magnetizations vanish at the same
critical temperature. This vanishing is continuous, indicating that the type of the transition is a second order. With the help of the finite-size
scaling analysis, we estimate the critical transition temperature related to the uniform coupling interaction value equals one. Our findings
reflect a good estimation of the critical temperature, TC that is equal to 2.976 ∓ 0.004 kJB . The obtained critical temperature of our presented
model can be found between the critical temperatures of hexagonal and triangular lattice models.
© 2022 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0078052

I. INTRODUCTION to Mean-Field Approximation (MFA),14–16 effective-field theory,17

Magnetic materials contribute strongly to the development of
many aspects of our civilization.1,2 In the last few decades, these
materials have received additional remarkable interest owing to
their high technological applications, such as in information stor-
age, spintronic devices, and non-volatile magnetic memories.1–3 In
the context of manufacturing such magnetic devices, much work
has been done to study the behavior of various magnetic materials
seeking promising candidates with specific requirements.1–4
In relation to the theoretical side, many magnetic models have
been proposed to describe the behavior of magnetic materials by
considering their spin and lattice symmetry, and representing the
interactions between these spins with different Hamiltonians.5–13
Owing to the lack of exact analytical solutions of such models
in most cases, their magnetic behaviors can be investigated with
different approximating techniques. These include but not limited
and Monte Carlo simulations.18,19 Moreover, it is worth mention-
ing that the important applications of these magnetic models are not
limited to the magnetic systems and they are also used effectively
to describe the behavior of non-magnetic systems, such as transi-
tions in alloys, adsorption of monoatoms (i.e., lattice gas model),16
and in other fields, such as random network theory and quantum
gravity,20 2D spintronics,21 supercomputer network design,22 and
neuroscience applications.23
Among other magnetic models, special emphasis is given to the
investigation of two-dimensional (2D) Ising-1/2 models with spin
values σ = ±1.24–33 These models can be constructed using different
2D lattice models, for example, the square, decorated square, hexag-
onal, and triangular lattices. The exact analytical solutions of such
2D magnetic lattice models with different magnetic phases have been
achieved.24–33 Precisely, a closer look at these 2D magnetic lattice

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temperature of our model, and to show the size effects on such

magnetic properties.
This paper is organized as follows: In Sec. II, we describe the
model and methodology, and in Sec. III, we show the results and
discussion. The conclusion of our work is presented in Sec. IV.

II. MODEL AND METHODOLOGY

FIG. 1. 2D lattice model based on the double hexagonal structure of small (red)
and (green) big hexagons.
The present studied double hexagonal lattice model consists of
two hexagonal sub-lattices LS and LB with two different size para-
meters.36 These sub-lattices LS and LB are associated with the small
and the big hexagon, respectively (see Fig. 1). Every site in such
sub-lattices is occupied by a spin-1/2 with the values σ = ±1. The
coupling interaction between the nearest neighbors of LS spins is
given by JS , whereas JC denotes the coupling interaction between
nearest neighbors of LS and LB spins. The Hamiltonian of the Ising
model for this system can be given by
H = −JS ∑ σi σj − JC ∑ σi σj , (1)
⟨i,j⟩ ⟨i,j⟩

models revealed that the square, decorated square, and hexagonal
lattice models can be associated with the root systems of a Lie algebra
of rank two.34,35
Recently, motivated by this association between Lie symme-
tries and the 2D lattice models, we have proposed a new 2D lattice
model, presented in Fig. 1, based on a double hexagonal symmetry
√ √
associated with the ( 3 × 3)R30 structure.36
○
where the bracket ⟨i, j⟩ denotes a pair of the nearest neighbor spins.
It should be mentioned that in this Monte Carlo study, we restrict
ourselves to that point of the phase diagram belonging to the fer-
romagnetic phase with a uniform coupling interaction value, which
equals one JS = JC = J = 1. The choice of this value is motivated by
the comparison of the results of this model, for instance, the criti-
cal temperature, with those of 2D hexagonal and triangular lattice

Indeed, models and the results of MFA as well.

√ √the connection between this new 2D lattice model with
Now, in order to investigate the critical behavior and the
the ( 3 × 3)R30 structure and the G2 symmetry, which is an
○

exceptional Lie algebra with rank two and dimension 14, has been
explained in detail in our previous work.36
√ √
Additionally, this ( 3 × 3)R30 structure has been reported
○
size effect on the magnetic properties of our model, we per-
form Monte Carlo simulation, which is more accurate for calcu-
lating thermal equilibrium properties and estimating the critical

temperature of such models. Particularly, we implement the

in many theoretical, experimental, and computational studies.37–47 Metropolis algorithm16,18–20 to compute the thermodynamic quanti-
Indeed, such a structure appears in a seven real dimensional mani- ties of interest for various lattice sizes, L, namely, L = 30, 60, 90, 120,
fold, playing an essential role in the M-theory compactification lead- 150, and 180.
ing to four-dimensional models with only four supercharges.37–39
√ √ Indeed, we calculate the thermal behavior of the partial and
Furthermore, this ( 3 × 3)R30 structure has been found exper-
○
total magnetizations per site through the following relations:
imentally, such as in the study of the epitaxial graphene on the SiC
materials using an oxidation method, the treatment of the silicene 1 NS
material by scanning tunneling spectroscopy, and in the rock salt mS (T) = ∑ σi , (2)
NS i=1
type films that exhibit an anomalous wurtzite type stacking near
the surface and form such a superstructure in their low-temperature
ground state.40–42 Additionally, this structure has been reported in 1 NB
our computational works, using the density functional theory cal- mB (T) = ∑ σi , (3)
NB i=1
culations of the iron, cobalt, and nickel adatom adsorption on the
graphene materials as well as the works on silicene and germanene
materials in Refs. 43–47. 1 Nt
In particular, in one of our previous studies using MFA, some mt (T) = ∑ σi , (4)
Nt i=1
magnetic properties of our model have been investigated.36 It has
been realized that the ground state demonstrates a rich phase dia- where NS and NB are the total numbers of spins (sites) associated
gram, such as the ferromagnetic, topological ferromagnetic, partial with the sub-lattices LS and LB , respectively. Nt stands for the total
ferromagnetic phases.36 Likewise, we have computed the critical number of sites corresponding to the lattice size L.
temperature and the magnetic properties, associated with the fact Similarly, we compute the thermal behavior of the partial and
that the uniform coupling interaction value equals one. total magnetic susceptibilities via
Motivated by all activities mentioned above and for the sake
of completeness, we perform Monte Carlo simulation in order NS
χS (T) = (⟨mS 2 ⟩ − ⟨mS ⟩2 ), (5)
to get more accurate magnetic properties, including the critical KB T

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FIG. 2. The variation of total magnetization (a) and the magnetization of each FIG. 3. The variation of total (a) and partial magnetic susceptibilities of each sub-
sub-lattice (b) and (c) as a function of the temperature for different lattice sizes. lattice (b) and (c) as a function of the temperature for different lattice sizes.

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NB III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

χB (T) = (⟨mB 2 ⟩ − ⟨mB ⟩2 ), (6)
KB T
In this section, we present the results and discussions of the
magnetic properties and critical temperature of our model. To start,
Nt we first plot and analyze the thermal behavior of the total and par-
χt (T) = (⟨mt 2 ⟩ − ⟨mt ⟩2 ), (7) tial magnetizations as well as the corresponding susceptibilities for
KB T
different lattice sizes. Then, with the help of the finite-size scaling
where KB is Boltzmann’s constant. analysis [Eq. (9)], we estimate the critical transition temperature
In addition, for more accurate estimation of the critical corresponding to the uniform interaction value.
temperature,10,16,18–20,43 we also calculate the thermal behavior of the We plot in Figs. 2(a)–2(c) the variation of the total and
derivative of the total magnetization, which is given by partial magnetizations as a function of the temperature for differ-
ent lattice sizes. These figures show that both partial magnetiza-
d(ln⟨mt ⟩(T)) ⟨emt ⟩ tion values, at very low temperature values, reach their maxima
= Nt ( − ⟨e⟩), (8) belonging to the ferromagnetic phase. This result is in good agree-
d( KB1T ) ⟨mt ⟩
ment with the reported ground state phase diagram.36 Moreover,
it is observed that the total and both partial magnetizations van-
where e is the internal energy per site. ish at the same critical temperature. This vanishing is continuous,
Like some thermal quantities, this quantity mentioned above indicating that the type of the transition belongs to the second
shows a singularity near the critical temperature in the infinite order.
system. However, in the finite lattice system, the scaling laws are Figures 3(a)–3(c) show the thermal behavior of the total and
replaced by finite-size scaling analysis, and therefore, this quantity partial magnetic susceptibilities for different lattice sizes. In Fig. 3(a),
will scale asymptotically for large lattice sizes, L.20 Accordingly, the it is revealed clearly that the peaks of the susceptibility curves appear
associated critical temperature, Tc , of our model can be obtained at the corresponding pseudo-critical temperature, Tc (L), for each
from the scaling relation20 of the pseudo-critical temperature of the lattice size. These peaks are increased by the increase in the lat-
system, Tc (L), with the system size, L, via the following equation: tice size L (due to the increase in the number of spins) and shifted
toward the left on the temperature axis. For the partial susceptibil-
KB Tc (L) KB Tc −1 ities, it is also found that there is a difference in the peak values
= + aL ν . (9)
J J of the two sub-lattices for the same lattice size L, as mentioned
in Figs. 3(b) and 3(c). This difference is attributed to the num-
Here, a is a constant and ν is the associated critical exponent of ber of spins in each sub-lattice NS and NB . In fact, these numbers,
the correlation length, which is equal to unity for the 2D Ising-1/2 NS and NB , have a ratio of 3:1, respectively, which reflects the
model.20 J is the coupling interaction, which is equal in our study to contribution from each sub-lattice to the total susceptibility and
one, JS = JC = J = 1. magnetization.

FIG. 4. The variation of the pseudo-

critical temperature Tc (L) of the maxima
of d(ln⟨m⟩)/d(1/K B T) as a function of the
lattice size inverse L−1 .

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Finally, it is important to determine the critical temperature sig- AUTHOR DECLARATIONS

nifying the ferromagnetic phase transition of our model. To estimate
Conflict of Interest
accurately such quantity, we, first, plot the pseudo-critical tempera-
ture, Tc (L), related to Eq. (8) as a function of the lattice size inverse, The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
L−1 . Then, we apply the linear fit on this plot. Following this linear cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
fit and Eq. (9), we can determine the critical temperature, Tc , from influence the work reported in this paper.
the intersection of the fit line with the axes, Tc (L), as presented in
Fig. 4. In fact, this intersection point gives a good estimation of the DATA AVAILABILITY
critical temperature, TC , which is equal to 2.976 ∓ 0.004 kJB .
Obviously, the obtained critical temperature of our pre- The data that support the findings of this study are available
sented model can be placed between the critical temperatures of from the corresponding author upon reasonable request and with
the permission of Deanship of Scientific Research at King Khalid
hexagonal (TC = 1.518 7 kJB ) and triangular (TC = 3.641 0 kJB ) lattice
University.
models.26,27 Such an order of the critical temperatures appears also
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