Three-dimensional Heisenberg model with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction: A Monte Carlo study

The three-dimensional classical Heisenberg model on a simple cubic lattice with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interactions between nearest-neighbors in all directions has been studied using Monte Carlo simulations. The Metropolis algorithm, combined with single histogram reweighting techniques and finite-size scaling analyses, has been used to obtain the thermodynamic behavior of the system in the thermodynamic limit. Simulations were performed with the same set of interaction parameters for both shifted boundary conditions (SBC) and fluctuating boundary conditions (FBC). Because of an incommensurability caused by the DM interaction, the SBC incorporated a fixed shift angle at the boundary which varies as a function of the DM interaction and lattice size. This SBC method decreases the simulation time significantly, but the distribution of states is somewhat different than that obtained with FBC. The ground state for nonzero DM interaction is a spiral configuration where the spins are restricted to lie in planes perpendicular to the DM vector. We found that this spiral configuration undergoes a conventional second-order phase transition into a disordered, paramagnetic state with the transition temperature being a function of the magnitude of the DM interaction. The limiting case with only DM interaction in the model has also been considered. The critical exponent ν, the critical exponent ratios α/ν, β/ν, γ/ν, as well as the critical temperature T₂ and fourth-order cumulant of the order parameter U₄^* at T₂ have been estimated for different magnitudes of DM interaction. The critical exponents and cumulants at the transition are different from those for the three-dimensional Heisenberg model, but the ratios α/ν, β/ν, γ/ν, U₄^*/ν are the same, implying that weak universality is valid for all values of DM interaction. Structure factor calculations for particular cases have been performed considering SBC and FBC in the simulations with different lattice sizes at the critical temperatures.