Possible ground states and parallel magnetic-field-driven phase transitions of collinear antiferromagnets

Abstract Understanding the nature of all possible ground states and especially magnetic-field-driven phase transitions of antiferromagnets represents a major step towards unravelling the real nature of interesting phenomena such as superconductivity, multiferroicity or magnetoresistance in condensed-matter science. Here a consistent mean-field calculation endowed with antiferromagnetic (AFM) exchange interaction (J), easy axis anisotropy (γ), uniaxial single-ion anisotropy (D) and Zeeman coupling to a magnetic field parallel to the AFM easy axis consistently unifies the AFM state, spin-flop (SFO) and spin-flip transitions. We reveal some mathematically allowed exotic spin states and fluctuations depending on the relative coupling strength of (J, γ and D). We build the three-dimensional (J, γ and D) and two-dimensional (γ and D) phase diagrams clearly displaying the equilibrium phase conditions and discuss the origins of various magnetic states as well as their transitions in different couplings. Besides the traditional first-order type one, we unambiguously confirm an existence of a second-order type SFO transition. This study provides an integrated theoretical model for the magnetic states of collinear antiferromagnets with two interpenetrating sublattices and offers a practical approach as an alternative to the estimation of magnetic exchange parameters (J, γ and D), and the results may shed light on nontrivial magnetism-related properties of bulks, thin films and nanostructures of correlated electron systems.