Monte Carlo Study of a Triangular Ising Lattice. II. Occurrence of the Kosterlitz-Thouless-Like Phase Transition

Abstract
A two-dimensional triangular Ising lattice with the nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic interaction J 1 and the next-nearest-neighbor ferromagnetic interaction - J 2 is studied by the Monte Carlo simulation. It is shown that the system with a finite J 2 undergoes the successive phase transition, paramagnetic→Kosterlitz-Thouless (KT)-like→ferrimagnetic phases, as temperature decreases. The sub-lattice switching phenomenon observed in our previous work is shown to be an intrinsic property inherent to the present system which has an XY character. The marginal exponent of the order-parameter correlation function at the KT-like transition point is seen to increase from 1/4 as the ratio J 2 / J 1 decreases, namely, it reveals a deviation from the universal behavior of a genuine XY model.