Ground state phase diagrams for the mixed Ising 3/2 and 5/2 spin model

We calculate the ground state phase diagrams of a mixed Ising model on a square lattice where spins S (+/- 3/2, +/- 1/2) in one sublattice are in alternating sites with spins Q (+/- 5/2, +/- 3/2, +/- 1/2), located on the other sublattice. The Hamiltonian of the model includes first neighbor interactions between the S and Q spins, next-nearest-neighbor interactions between the S spins, and between the Q spins, and crystal field. The topologies of the phase diagrams depend on the values of the parameters in the Hamiltonian. The diagrams show some key features: coexistence between regions, points where two, three, four, five and six states can coexist. Besides being very useful as a way to check the low temperature limit of the finite-temperature phase diagram, often obtained by mean-field theories, the richness of the ground state diagrams for certain combinations of parameters can be used as a guide to explore interesting regions of the finite-temperature phase diagram of the model. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.