Numerical study of the renormalization group equations in the four-cell approximation

Martin Andersson

Bernard Nienhuis, Michael Nauenberg

The renormalization-group series expansion for the free energy of the Ising model is applied to obtain the equation of state in an external magnetic field. Numerical calculations for a square lattice in a four-cell-cluster approximation are compared in the scaling limit with results of high- and low-temperature series expansions.

Jean Zinn‐Justin

Abstract In Chapter 14, the singular behavior of ferromagnetic systems with O(N) symmetry and short-range interactions, near a second order phase transition has been determined in the mean-field approximation, which is also a quasi-Gaussian approximation. The mean-field approximation predicts a set of universal properties, properties independent of the detailed structure of the microscopic Hamiltonian, the dimension of space, and, to a large extent, of the symmetry of systems. However, the leading corrections to the mean-field approximation, in dimensions smaller than or equal to four, diverge at the critical temperature, and the universal predictions of the mean-field approximation cannot be correct. Such a problem originates from the non-decoupling of scales and leads to the question of possible universality. In Chapter 9, the question has been answered in four dimensions using renormalization theory, and related renormalization group (RG) equations. Moreover, below four dimensions, in an expansion around the mean-field, the most singular terms near criticality can be also formally recovered from a continuum, low-mass φ4 field theory. More generally, following Wilson, to understand universality beyond the mean-field approximation, it is necessary to build a general renormalization group in the form of flow equations for effective Hamiltonians and to find fixed points of the flow equations. Near four dimensions, the flow equations can be approximated by the renormalization group of quantum field theory (QFT), and the fixed points and critical behaviours derived within the framework of the Wilson-Fisher ϵ expansion.

Simone Montangero

Bernard Nienhuis, Michael Nauenberg

The conventional renormalization-group analysis of the tricritical behavior of a metamagnet is completed by a description of the first-order transition below the tricritical temperature, and the conditions for the discontinuity in the magnetization are explicitly verified in an Ising spin model. The singularity structure of the crossover scaling function is derived from relations between the scaling fields for the critical and tricritical fixed points. Numerical calculations illustrating various aspects of the theory are given for a square-lattice Ising model in a four-cell cluster approximation.

Angelo Cacciuto, Eric B. Gregory, Alex Travesset