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Mean-field theory

James Jeffrey Binney, N J Dowrick, Andrew J. Fisher, Mark E. J. Newman

Published Jun 11, 1992• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract In the previous chapter we saw that it is possible to make a great deal of progress in the study of particular models by real-space renormalization methods. These methods are very elegant and can explain why critical exponents arise and how they are related to each other. However, they are also very specific: it requires considerable ingenuity to invent an accurate (and tractable) real-space scaling transformation for any given model, and even when one has succeeded it is not normally very helpful in tackling the next problem.

DOI
10.1093/oso/9780198513940.003.0006

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Abstract In the previous chapter we saw that it is possible to make a great deal of progress in the study of particular models by real-space renormalization methods. These methods are very elegant and can explain why critical exponents arise and how they are related to each other. However, they are also very specific: it requires considerable ingenuity to invent an accurate (and tractable) real-space scaling transformation for any given model, and even when one has succeeded it is not normally very helpful in tackling the next problem.
Abstract The approaches described so far in this book have given a broad phenomenological understanding of critical phenomena. However, although a substantial framework of results and connections has been built up, we have, as yet, no explanations for the following: What is needed is a theory, based on the physics of what is happening at the critical point. we argued in Chapter 1 that the special feature of criticality is that the correlation length is infinite and that the critical system is invariant on all length scales. The aim is to write down a (hopefully short, elegant, and comprehensible) mathematical theory which embodies this physics and explains all the observations listed above. A useful theory will also allow the calculation of critical exponents and transition temperatures, if not exactly, then within an accurate and well-controlled approximation scheme.
Abstract We are part of the way towards understanding the Landau-Ginzburg model in the critical regime. We have been able to calculate two critical exponents, one of which describes the system at T = Tc and the other at T ≠ Tc. If we are prepared to accept the scaling laws for which we found experimental evidence in Chapter 1, and theoretical evidence in Chapter 5, we can stop there; all four remaining critical exponents follow. However, this is rather unsatisfactory. In Chapter 5 we saw that the scaling relations can be deduced from the properties of the critical fixed point that is reached by repeatedly reblocking and rescaling the system; it would be good to provide a similarly general derivation in the context of the Landau-Ginzburg model.
In the previous chapter, we developed the perturbative formulation of the Landau–Ginzburg theory and introduced Feynman diagrams as a systematic way to compute corrections to the Gaussian (mean-field) results. Mean-field theory provides a qualitatively correct picture of phase transitions but fails quantitatively: it neglects fluctuations, leading to incorrect values of the critical exponents, especially in low dimensions ( https://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> D < 4 ). To obtain accurate exponents, one must incorporate fluctuations perturbatively and study how couplings evolve with scale.
The stated goal of this book is to fill a perceived gap between undergraduate texts on critical phenomena and advanced texts on quantum field theory, in the general area of renormalization methods. It is debatable whether this gap really exists nowadays, as a number of books have appeared in which it is made clear that field-theoretic renormalization group methods are not the preserve of particle theory, and indeed are far more easily appreciated in the contexts of statistical and condensed matter physics. Nevertheless, this volume does have a fresh aspect to it, perhaps because of the author's background in fluid dynamics and turbulence theory, rather than through the more traditional migration from particle physics. The book begins at a very elementary level, in an effort to motivate the use of renormalization methods. This is a worthy effort, but it is likely that most of this section will be thought too elementary by readers wanting to get their teeth into the subject, while those for whom this section is apparently written are likely to find the later chapters rather challenging. The author's particular approach then leads him to emphasise the role of renormalized perturbation theory (rather than the renormalization group) in a number of problems, including non-linear systems and turbulence. Some of these ideas will be novel and perhaps even surprising to traditionally trained field theorists. Most of the rest of the book is on far more familiar territory: the momentum-space renormalization group, epsilon-expansion, and so on. This is standard stuff, and, like many other textbooks, it takes a considerable chunk of the book to explain all the formalism. As a result, there is only space to discuss the standard ϕ 4 field theory as applied to the Ising model (even the N -vector model is not covered) so that no impression is conveyed of the power and extent of all the applications and generalizations of the techniques. It is regrettable that so much space is spent on rather oversimplified and unrelated models in the first part of the book that, in the end, the reader is left breathless on the threshold of the really interesting material. Despite the earlier emphasis on the application of renormalization ideas in dynamics, in the end the full power of the field-theoretical approach is not applied to the obvious arena of dynamic critical phenomena (where there certainly is currently a gap in the literature) but to the Navier--Stokes equations. The development of the book is somewhat illogical in places. Mean field theory interrupts discussion of block spin methods and scaling arguments---the two are distinct approaches. The Callan--Symanzik equation is introduced before Feynman diagrams are explained, so that there is a hiatus before the actual results for the critical exponents can be found. I think this book is too broad in some respects, and too limited in others, to be a really useful textbook for a course on renormalization methods. Those who have learned these ideas either from field theory, or from nonlinear systems, will find it more rewarding for the sections covering the topics with which they are less familiar. For this reason alone, the book should at least find a place on most library reference shelves.
A new real space renormalization group transformation combining ideas from mean-field and finite-size scaling theories is presented. Application to the two-dimensional site directed percolation problem gives better values for the percolation threshold and critical exponent of longitudinal correlation length than those obtained previously with other real space renormalization group approaches. When applied to one-, two- and three-dimensional) Ising models, the results are comparable to the ones from previous mean-field-like renormalization group transformations. This method can easily be applied to other systems having second-order phase transitions.