On the mechanism behind the inverse melting in systems with competing interactions

Abstract

Here we present a fundamental comprehension of the microscopic mechanisms leading to the emergence of inverse melting transitions by considering a thorough mean-field analysis of a variety of minimal models with different competing interactions. Through analytical and numerical tools we identify the specific connections between the characteristic energy of the homogeneous and modulated phases and the observed reentrant behaviors. In particular, we find that reentrance is appreciable when the characteristic energy cost of the homogeneous and modulated phases are comparable to each other, and for systems in which the local order parameter is limited. In the asymptotic limit of high energy cost of the homogeneous phase we obtain analytically that the degree of reentrance of the phase diagram decreases exponentially with the ratio of the characteristic energy cost of homogeneous and modulated phases. We are also able to establish theoretical (upper and lower) bounds for the degree of the reentrance, according to the nature of the competing interactions. Finally, we confront our mean-field results with Langevin simulations of an effective coarse grained model, confirming the main results regarding the degree of the reentrance in the phase diagram. These results shed new light on the many systems undergoing inverse melting transitions, from magnets to colloids and vortex matter, by qualitatively improving the understanding of the interplay of entropy and energy around the inverse melting points.