Magnetocaloric effect (MCE): Microscopic approach within Tyablikov approximation for anisotropic ferromagnets

The aim of this paper is to generalize the microscopic approach to the description of the magnetocaloric effect (MCE) started by Kokorina and Medvedev (E.E. Kokorina, M.V. Medvedev, Physica B 416 (2013) 29.) by applying it to the anisotropic ferromagnet of the "easy axis" type in two settings - with external magnetic field parallel and perpendicular to the axis of easy magnetization. In the last case there appears the field induced (or spin-reorientation) phase transition which occurs at the critical value of the external magnetic field. This value is proportional to the exchange anisotropy constant at low temperatures, but with the rise of temperature it may be renormalized (as a rule, proportional to the magnetization). We use the explicit form of the Hamiltonian of the anisotropic ferromagnet and apply widely used random phase approximation (RPA) (known also as Tyablikov approximation in the Green function method) which is more accurate than the well known molecular field approximation (MFA). It is shown that in the first case the magnitude of MCE is raised whereas in the second one the MCE disappears due to compensation of the critical field renormalized with the magnetization. © 2014 Elsevier B.V.