Role of entropy in the ground state formation of frustrated systems

The absence of magnetic order in Rare Earth-based frustrated compounds allows to recognize the action of the third law of thermodynamics in the low temperature behavior of those systems. One of the most relevant findings is the appearance of a coincident specific heat Cm/T|T→0≈7J/molK2 'plateau' in six Yb systems. This characteristic feature occurs after a systematic modification of the thermal trajectory of their entropies Sm(T) in the range of a few hundred milikelvin degrees. Such behavior is explained by the formation of an entropy-bottleneck imposed by the third law constraint (Sm|T→0≥0), that drives the system into alternative ground states. Based in these finding, three possible approaches to the Sm|T→0 limit observed in real systems are analyzed in terms of the ∂2Sm/∂T2 dependencies.