Physical review. B, Condensed matter
One-dimensional inhomogeneous Ising model with periodic boundary conditions
Jerome K. Percus, M. Q. Zhang
Abstract
In this paper, we focus on the essential difference between the inhomogeneous one-dimensional Ising model with open and periodic boundary conditions. We show that, although the profile equation in the periodic case becomes highly nonlocal, due to a topological collective mode, there exists a local free-energy functional in an extended space and one can solve the inhomogeneous problem exactly.