1/9 Magnetization Plateau in a Classical Kagome Ising Ferromagnet with Competing Further-Neighbor Interactions
Abstract
The two-dimensional kagome lattice is a paradigmatic platform for exploring geometrically frustrated magnetism. While the nearest-neighbor ferromagnetic Ising model on this lattice is theoretically trivial, competing further-neighbor interactions can reintroduce severe frustration. In this work, we systematically investigate a classical kagome Ising model with ferromagnetic nearest-neighbor (J1) and antiferromagnetic second- (J2) and third-neighbor (J3) couplings using simulated annealing Monte Carlo methods. We demonstrate that while J2 couplings merely suppress the conventional ferromagnetic order, the inclusion of J3 fundamentally reconstructs the low-temperature phase diagram. This extended geometric frustration stabilizes a novel ordered phase characterized by a robust 1/9 magnetization plateau and a massively enlarged 3 by 3 magnetic supercell. Crucially, this fractional ordered phase manifests as a stability plateau in the phase diagram, where its critical temperature becomes nearly independent of the coupling strength J3. We also calculate the corresponding static spin structure factor, revealing a distinct Z6-symmetric reciprocal-space signature for experimental identification. Our findings reveal that complex fractional magnetic orders can emerge purely from classical geometric frustration induced by competing extended interactions, providing a distinct mechanism for understanding fractionally ordered states in real frustrated magnets.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2605.24372,
title = {1/9 Magnetization Plateau in a Classical Kagome Ising Ferromagnet with Competing Further-Neighbor Interactions},
author = {Yixin Guan and Kan Zhao and Nvsen Ma},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.24372},
year = {2026}
}