We review some aspects of the fermionic interpretation of the two-dimensional Ising model.The use is made of the notion of the integral over the anticommuting Grassmann variables.For simple and more complicated 2D Ising lattices, the partition function can be expressed as a fermionic Gaussian integral.Equivalently, the 2D Ising model can be reformulated as a free-fermion theory on a lattice.For regular lattices the analytic solution then readily follows by passing to the momentum space for fermions.We also comment on the eective eld{theoretical (continuum{limit) fermionic formulations for the 2D Ising models near the critical point.
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.
We review the applications of the integral over anticommuting Grassmann variables (nonquantum fermionic fields) to the analytic solutions and the field-theoretical formulations for the 2D Ising models. The 2D Ising model partition function
Q is presentable as the fermionic Gaussian integral. The use of the spin-polynomial interpretation of the 2D Ising problem is stressed, in particular. Starting with the spin-polynomial interpretation of the local Boltzmann weights, the Gaussian integral for
Q appears in the universal form for a variety of lattices, including the standard rectangular, triangular, and hexagonal lattices, and with the minimal number of fermionic variables (two per site). The analytic solutions for the correspondent 2D Ising models then follow by passing to the momentum space on a lattice. The symmetries and the question on the location of critical point have an interesting interpretation within this spin-polynomial formulation of the problem. From the exact lattice theory we then pass to the continuum-limit field-theoretical interpretation of the 2D Ising models. The continuum theory captures all relevant features of the original models near
Tc. The continuum limit corresponds to the low-momentum sector of the exact theory responsible for the critical-point singularities and the large-distance behaviour of correlations. The resulting field theory is the massive two-component Majorana theory, with mass vanishing at
Tc. By doubling of fermions in the Majorana representation, we obtain as well the 2D Dirac field theory of charged fermions for 2D Ising models. The differences between particular 2D Ising lattices are merely adsorbed, in the field-theoretical formulation, in the definition of the effective mass.
The problem of the effect of inhomogeneous impurities in a lattice structure on the critical behaviour of systems which undergo a second-order phase transition is studied on a model system, the 2D Ising Model with impurity bonds randomly distributed over the lattice. It is known that in the critical region the 2D Ising Model is equivalent to the model of free fermions. We show that the effect of impurities is to add a four-fermion interaction with the corresponding charge proportional to the concentration of impurities. The resulting fermion model is simple enough and can be studied exactly by renormalization group methods. We show that for any small concentration of impurity bonds a new critical regime is established if we go sufficiently close to the phase-transition point. In particular we find that the specific heat singularity changes from C ˜ ln 1/|τ|(τ=(Τ − Τc/Τc to C ˜ ln ln 1/|τ| for τ≪τi ˜ exp(−const/c i), c i being the concentration of impurities, while the spin-spin correlation function in the critical point changes more seriously: from <σ R σΟ> ˜ 1/R1/4 to <σ R σΟ> ˜ exp { − (const/c i)(ln ln R2 )} for R≫R i˜ exp (const/c i), which corresponds to a change of the critical exponent η from 1/4 to 0.