Magnetocaloric properties of a frustrated Blume-Capel antiferromagnet

Low-temperature magnetization processes and magnetocaloric properties of a geometrically frustrated spin-1 Blume-Capel model on a triangular lattice are studied by Monte Carlo simulations. The model is found to display qualitatively different behavior depending on the sign of the single-ion anisotropy D. For positive values of D we observe two magnetization plateaus, similar to the spin-1/2 Ising antiferromagnet, and negative isothermal entropy changes for any field intensity. For a range of small negative values of D there are four magnetization plateaus and the entropy changes can be either negative or positive, depending on the field. If D is negative but large in absolute value then the entropy changes are solely positive.