Critical Slowing Down at the Abrupt Mott Transition: When the First-Order Phase Transition Becomes Zeroth Order and Looks Like Second Order

• Published in: Physical review letters Vol. 124; no. 9; p. 095703
• Main Authors: Kundu, Satyaki, Bar, Tapas, Nayak, Rajesh Kumble, Bansal, Bhavtosh
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Physical Society 06-03-2020
• Subjects: Metastable phases; Opalescence; Order parameters; Phase transitions; Singularities; Vanadium oxides
• ISSN: 0031-9007; 1079-7114
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.095703

We report that the thermally induced Mott transition in vanadium sesquioxide shows critical slowing down and enhanced variance ("critical opalescence") of the order parameter fluctuations measured through low-frequency resistance-noise spectroscopy. Coupled with the observed increase of the phase-ordering time, these features suggest that the strong abrupt transition is controlled by a critical-like singularity in the hysteretic metastable phase. The singularity is identified with the spinodal point and is a likely consequence of the strain-induced long-range interaction.