Phase diagram of the helical structure of a two-subsystem frustrated antiferromagnet

The expansion of the thermodynamic potential for the two-subsystem antiferromagnet with frustrated intersubsystem isotropic exchange is obtained. It is demonstrated that this expansion contains the first derivatives with respect to the antiferromagnetic vectors of the subsystems, i.e., the Lifshitz invariant. The equation for the temperature-field boundary of the helical phase for the two-subsystem frustrated antiferromagnet is derived by linearizing the variational equations for the minimum free energy within the mean-field approximation. Relationships are obtained for the critical field at T = 0, the angle of canting of moments of the antiferromagnetic sublattices, and the temperature of spontaneous appearance of helical ordering in the absence of an external field. It is revealed that there is a second higher temperature of formation of the helical magnetic structure induced by the magnetic field with the wave vector of the helix nonmonotonically depending on the external field. The phase boundary of the helical phase and the temperature dependence of the orientation of moments of the magnetic subsystem with weak exchange interaction are determined using numerical minimization of the free energy. It is shown that the transition to the commensurate phase is a first-order transition with a small magnetization jump. A comparative analysis of models with different spatial displacements of ions in the subsystems along the direction of the vector of the helical structure is performed. A criterion is proposed for the choice of the direction of the vector of the incommensurate magnetic structure.