Understanding the relationship which integrable (solvable) models, all of which possess very special symmetry properties, have with the generic non-integrable models that are used to describe real experiments, which do not have the symmetry properties, is one of the most fundamental open questions in both statistical mechanics and quantum field theory. The importance of the two-dimensional Ising model in a magnetic field is that it is the simplest system where this relationship may be concretely studied. We here review the advances made in this study, and concentrate on the magnetic susceptibility which has revealed an unexpected natural boundary phenomenon. When this is combined with the Fermionic representations of conformal characters, it is suggested that the scaling theory, which smoothly connects the lattice with the correlation length scale, may be incomplete for H ≠ 0.
Understanding the relationship which integrable (solvable) models, all of which possess very special symmetry properties, have with the generic non-integrable models that are used to describe real experiments, which do not have the symmetry properties, is one of the most fundamental open questions in both statistical mechanics and quantum field theory. The importance of the two-dimensional Ising model in a magnetic field is that it is the simplest system where this relationship may be concretely studied. We here review the advances made in this study, and concentrate on the magnetic susceptibility which has revealed an unexpected natural boundary phenomenon. When this is combined with the Fermionic representations of conformal characters, it is suggested that the scaling theory, which smoothly connects the lattice with the correlation length scale, may be incomplete for H ≠ 0.
Understanding the relationship which integrable (solvable) models, all of which possess very special symmetry properties, have with the generic nonintegrable models that are used to describe real experiments, which do not have the symmetry properties, is one of the most fundamental open questions in both statistical mechanics and quantum field theory.The importance of the two-dimensional Ising model in a magnetic field is that it is the simplest system where this relationship may be concretely studied.We here review the advances made in this study, and concentrate on the magnetic susceptibility which has revealed an unexpected natural boundary phenomenon.When this is combined with the Fermionic representations of conformal characters, it is suggested that the scaling theory, which smoothly connects the lattice with the correlation length scale, may be incomplete for H = 0.
Understanding the relationship which integrable (solvable) models, all of which possess very special symmetry properties, have with the generic nonintegrable models that are used to describe real experiments, which do not have the symmetry properties, is one of the most fundamental open questions in both statistical mechanics and quantum field theory.The importance of the two-dimensional Ising model in a magnetic field is that it is the simplest system where this relationship may be concretely studied.We here review the advances made in this study, and concentrate on the magnetic susceptibility which has revealed an unexpected natural boundary phenomenon.When this is combined with the Fermionic representations of conformal characters, it is suggested that the scaling theory, which smoothly connects the lattice with the correlation length scale, may be incomplete for H = 0.
The two-dimensional Ising model is the simplest model of statistical mechanics exhibiting a second-order phase transition. While in absence of magnetic field it is known to be solvable on the lattice since Onsager's work of the 1940s, exact results for the magnetic case have been missing until the late 1980s, when A Zamolodchikov solved the model in a field at the critical temperature, directly in the scaling limit, within the framework of integrable quantum field theory. In this paper, we review this field theoretical approach to the Ising universality class, with particular attention to the results obtained starting from Zamolodchikov's scattering solution and to their comparison with the numerical estimates on the lattice. The topics discussed include scattering theory, form factors, correlation functions, universal amplitude ratios and perturbations around integrable directions. Although we restrict our discussion to the Ising model, the emphasis is on the general methods of integrable quantum field theory which can be used in the study of all universality classes of critical behaviour in two dimensions.
Abstract In undergraduate statistical mechanics courses the Ising model always plays an important role because it is the simplest non-trivial model used to describe magnetic systems. The one-dimensional model is easily solved analytically, while the two-dimensional one can be solved exactly by the Onsager solution. For this reason, numerical simulations are usually used to solve the two-dimensional model. Keeping in mind that the two-dimensional model is the platform for studying phase transitions, it is usually an exercise in computational undergraduate courses because its numerical solution is relatively simple to implement and its critical exponents are perfectly known. The purpose of this article is to present a detailed numerical study of the second-order phase transition in the two-dimensional Ising model at an undergraduate level, allowing readers not only to compare the mean-field solution, the exact solution and the numerical one through a complete study of the order parameter, the correlation function and finite-size scaling, but to present the techniques, along with hints and tips, for solving it themselves. We present the elementary theory of phase transitions and explain how to implement Markov chain Monte Carlo simulations and perform them for different lattice sizes with periodic boundary conditions. Energy, magnetization, specific heat, magnetic susceptibility and the correlation function are calculated and the critical exponents determined by finite-size scaling techniques. The importance of the correlation length as the relevant parameter in phase transitions is emphasized.
The Ising model at magnetic field H=0 is one of the most important exactly solved models in statistical mechanics, solved on the square lattice in 1944 by Onsager, and later by others on the triangular lattice; its magnetic susceptibility at H=0 continues to be an unsolved aspect of the model, however. The susceptibility can either be viewed as a sum over all correlation functions of the integrable model at H=0, or else as a second derivative of the free energy of the non-integrable Ising model in a field. Therefore, its analytic properties, though derived from the non-integrable model, can be studied through series expansion of the integrable correlation functions. We begin this process by analyzing the first four terms in the form factor expansion of the diagonal correlation functions, and after summing over the diagonal form factor expansion, the first four terms of the diagonal susceptibility expansion. We have been able to reduce the form factor and susceptibility expansion terms, given as multi-dimensional integrals, to closed-form functions in all cases. Under the limit of H going to infinity with the interaction energy E going to minus infinity, the isotropic Ising model becomes a hard particle lattice gas model, with exclusion of nearest neighbor lattice sites. In this limit, the triangular lattice Ising model becomes the exactly solved hard hexagon model, while the square lattice becomes the non-integrable hard squares model. We study in detail these models for finite lattice sizes in order to understand the differences between integrable and non-integrable models. We consider the partition functions zeros and their density for different boundary conditions, and find notable differences in the density which is attributed to an extra factorization in the transfer matrices of hard hexagons which is absent in hard squares. We also study the special point at fugacity z=-1 of hard squares where all eigenvalues of the transfer matrix are equimodular and where the grand partition function's value depends on boundary conditions. | 300 pages
Abstract In this chapter we will begin our study of the Ising model on the two-dimensional lattice. In two dimensions the model has a phase transition, with critical exponents that have different values from those obtained in the mean field approximation. For this reason, it provides an important example of critical phenomena. As we will see in great detail in this chapter and in the next, among all exactly solved models of statistical mechanics, the two-dimensional Ising model is not only the one that has been most studied but it is also the model that has given a series of deep mathematical and physical results. Many solutions of the model stand out for the ingenious methods used, such as the theory of determinants, combinatorial approaches, Grassmann variables, or elliptic functions. Many results have deeply influenced the understanding of critical phenomena and have strongly stimulated new fields of research. Ideas that have matured within the study of the two-dimensional Ising model, such as the duality between its highand low-temperature phases, have been readily generalized to other systems of statistical mechanics and have also found important and fundamental applications in other important areas such as, for instance, quantum field theory. Equally fundamental is the discovery that in the vicinity of the critical point, the dynamics of the model can be described from the relativistic Dirac equation for Majorana fermions.