Effect of Increasing Disorder on the Critical Behavior of a Coulomb System

Abstract

We have performed a Monte Carlo study of a classical three dimensional Coulomb system in which we systematically increase the positional disorder. We start from a completely ordered system and gradually transition to a Coulomb glass. The phase transition as a function of temperature is second order for all values of disorder. We use finite size scaling to determine the transition temperature T_C and the critical exponent nu. We find that T_C decreases and that nu increases with increasing disorder. We also observe changes in the specific heat, the single particle density of states, and the staggered occupation as a function of disorder and temperature.