The article provides a tutorial review on how to treat Ising models within mean-field (MF), effective-field (EF) and exact methods. MF solutions of the spin-1 Blume-Capel (BC) model and the mixed-spin Ising model demonstrate a change of continuous phase transitions to discontinuous ones at a tricritical point. A quantum phase transition of the spin-S Ising model driven by a transverse field is explored within MF method. EF theory is elaborated within a single- and two-spin cluster approach to demonstrate an efficiency of this approximate method. The long-standing problem of this method concerned with a self-consistent determination of the free energy is addressed. EF theory is adapted for the spin-1/2 Ising model, the spin-S BC model and the transverse Ising model. The particular attention is paid to continuous and discontinuous transitions. Exact results for the spin-1/2 Ising chain, spin-1 BC chain and mixed-spin Ising chain are obtained using the transfer-matrix method, the crucial steps of which are reviewed for a spin-1/2 Ising square lattice. Critical points of the spin-1/2 Ising model on several lattices are rigorously obtained with the help of dual, star-triangle and decoration-iteration transformations. Mapping transformations are adapted to obtain exact results for the mixed-spin Ising model on planar lattices. An increase in the coordination number of the mixed-spin Ising model on decorated planar lattices gives rise to reentrant transitions, while the critical temperature of the mixed-spin Ising model on a regular honeycomb lattice is always greater than that of two semi-regular archimedean lattices. The effect of selective site dilution of the mixed-spin Ising model on a honeycomb lattice upon phase diagrams is examined. The review affords a brief account of the Ising models solved within MF, EF and exact methods along with a few comments on their future applicability.
There is no an exact solution to three-dimensional (3D) finite-size Ising model (referred to as the Ising model hereafter for simplicity) and even two-dimensional (2D) Ising model with non-zero external field to our knowledge. Here by using an elementary but rigorous method, we obtain an exact solution to the partition function of the Ising model with
N lattice sites. It is a sum of
2N exponential functions and holds for
D-dimensional (
D=1,2,3,...) Ising model with or without the external field. This solution provides a new insight into the problem of the Ising model and the related difficulties, and new understanding of the classic exact solutions for one-dimensional (1D) (Kramers and Wannier, 1941) or 2D Ising model (Onsager, 1944). With this solution, the specific heat and magnetisation of a simple 3D Ising model are calculated, which are consistent with the results from experiments and/or numerical simulations. Furthermore, the solution here and the related approaches, can also be available to other models like the percolation and/or the Potts model.
A powerful existing technique for evaluating statistical mechanical quantities in two-dimensional Ising models is based on constructing a matrix representing the nearest-neighbor spin couplings and then evaluating the Pfaffian of the matrix. Utilizing this technique and other more recent developments in evaluating elements of inverse matrices and exact sampling, a method and computer code for studying two-dimensional Ising models is developed. The formulation of this method is convenient and fast for computing the partition function and spin correlations. It is also useful for exact sampling, where configurations are directly generated with probability given by the Boltzmann distribution. These methods apply to Ising model samples with arbitrary nearest-neighbor couplings and can also be applied to general dimer models. Example results of computations are described, including comparisons with analytic results for the ferromagnetic Ising model, and timing information is provided.