Eur. Phys. J. B (2012) 85: 167
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2012-20682-5

Regular Article

Thermodynamic properties of the one-dimensional extended quantum compass model in the presence of a transverse field

¹ Research Department, Nanosolar System Company (NSS), 45158-65911 Zanjan, Iran
² Department of Physics, Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences (IASBS), 45137-66731 Zanjan, Iran

^a e-mail: jafari@iasbs.ac.ir

Received: 20 August 2011
Received in final form: 29 February 2012
Published online: 24 May 2012

Abstract

The presence of a quantum critical point can significantly affect the thermodynamic properties of a material at finite temperatures. This is reflected, e.g., in the entropy landscape S(T, c) in the vicinity of a quantum critical point, yielding particularly strong variations for varying the tuning parameter c such as magnetic field. In this work we have studied the thermodynamic properties of the quantum compass model in the presence of a transverse field. The specific heat, entropy and cooling rate under an adiabatic demagnetization process have been calculated. During an adiabatic (de)magnetization process temperature drops in the vicinity of a field-induced zero-temperature quantum phase transitions. However close to field-induced quantum phase transitions we observe a large magnetocaloric effect.