Phase transition in a square Ising model with exchange and dipole interactions

Competition between dipole and nearest neighbor exchange interaction in the square Ising model is responsible for the occurrence of antiferromagnetic and striped configurations the width of which, h, increases at increasing J/g, where J and g are the strength of the exchange and the dipole interaction, respectively. Extensive Monte Carlo simulations and finite-size scaling analysis are performed to investigate the nature of the order-disorder phase transition for selected values of J/g supporting the antiferromagnetic configuration and the striped configurations with h=1, 2, 3, 4. Both continuous and first order phase transitions are recognized.