Weak Singularities of the Isothermal Entropy Change as the Smoking Gun Evidence of Phase Transitions of Mixed-Spin Ising Model on a Decorated Square Lattice in Transverse Field

The magnetocaloric response of the mixed spin-1/2 and spin-S (S>1/2) Ising model on a decorated square lattice is thoroughly examined in presence of the transverse magnetic field within the generalized decoration-iteration transformation, which provides an exact mapping relation with an effective spin-1/2 Ising model on a square lattice in a zero magnetic field. Temperature dependencies of the entropy and isothermal entropy change exhibit an outstanding singular behavior in a close neighborhood of temperature-driven continuous phase transitions, which can be additionally tuned by the applied transverse magnetic field. While temperature variations of the entropy display in proximity of the critical temperature Tc a striking energy-type singularity (T−Tc)log|T−Tc|, two analogous weak singularities can be encountered in the temperature dependence of the isothermal entropy change. The basic magnetocaloric measurement of the isothermal entropy change may accordingly afford the smoking gun evidence of continuous phase transitions. It is shown that the investigated model predominantly displays the conventional magnetocaloric effect with exception of a small range of moderate temperatures, which contrarily promotes the inverse magnetocaloric effect. It turns out that the temperature range inherent to the inverse magnetocaloric effect is gradually suppressed upon increasing of the spin magnitude S.