Monte-Carlo study of dipolar spin ice under uni-axial pressure

The spin-ice materials are exemplars of magnetic frustration in three dimensions.
This work considers the influence of uni-axial pressure on a spin-ice system by means of Monte-Carlo simulations. Pressure is an important probe of geometrically frustrated systems since lattice distortions tend to lift the degeneracy of the ground state, and can significantly affect the ordering tendencies of the systems. While previous studies have focused on the effects of pressure on the nearest-neighbor spin-ice model, we consider a dipolar spin-ice model relevant for the classical spin-ice material Dy₂Ti₂O₇, in which both exchange and dipolar interactions are present. In particular, we investigate how the dipolar interaction affects the nature of the pressure-induced ordering transition.