A combinatorial approach is used to study the critical behavior of a $q$-state Potts model with a round-the-face interaction. Using this approach it is shown that the model exhibits a first order transition for $q>3$. A second order transition is numerically detected for $q=2$. Based on these findings, it is deduced that for some two-dimensional ferromagnetic Potts models with completely local interaction, there is a changeover in the transition order at a critical integer $q_cleq 3$. This stands in contrast to the standard two-spin interaction Potts model where the maximal integer value for which the transition is continuous is $q_c=4$. A lower bound on the first order critical temperature is additionally derived.
A hybrid Potts model where a random concentration $p$ of the spins assume $q_0$ states and a random concentration $1-p$ of the spins assume $q>q_0$ states is introduced. It is known that when the system is homogeneous, with an integer spin number $q_0$ or $q$, it undergoes a second or a first order transition, respectively. It is argued that there is a concentration $p^ast$ such that the transition nature of the model is changed at $p^ast$. This idea is demonstrated analytically and by simulations for two different types of interaction: the usual square lattice nearest neighboring and the mean field all-to-all interaction. Exact expressions for the second order critical line in concentration-temperature parameter space of the mean field model together with some other related critical properties, are derived.
We study the stochastic dynamics of infinitely many globally interacting $q$-state units on a ring that is externally driven. While repulsive interactions always lead to uniform occupations, attractive interactions give rise to much richer phenomena: We analytically characterize a Hopf bifurcation which separates a high-temperature regime of uniform occupations from a low-temperature one where all units coalesce into a single state. For odd $q$ below the critical temperature starts a synchronization regime which ends via a second phase transition at lower temperatures, while for even $q$ this intermediate phase disappears. We find that interactions have no effects except below critical temperature for attractive interactions. A thermodynamic analysis reveals that the dissipated work is reduced in this regime, whose temperature range is shown to decrease as $q$ increases. The $q$-dependence of the power-efficiency trade-off is also analyzed.
We consider the problem of inferring a graphical Potts model on a population of variables, with a non-uniform number of Potts colors (symbols) across variables. This inverse Potts problem generally involves the inference of a large number of parameters, often larger than the number of available data, and, hence, requires the introduction of regularization. We study here a double regularization scheme, in which the number of colors available to each variable is reduced, and interaction networks are made sparse. To achieve this color compression scheme, only Potts states with large empirical frequency (exceeding some threshold) are explicitly modeled on each site, while the others are grouped into a single state. We benchmark the performances of this mixed regularization approach, with two inference algorithms, the Adaptive Cluster Expansion (ACE) and the PseudoLikelihood Maximization (PLM) on synthetic data obtained by sampling disordered Potts models on an Erdos-Renyi random graphs. We show in particular that color compression does not affect the quality of reconstruction of the parameters corresponding to high-frequency symbols, while drastically reducing the number of the other parameters and thus the computational time. Our procedure is also applied to multi-sequence alignments of protein families, with similar results.
We investigate the two-dimensional $q=3$ and 4 Potts models with a variable interaction range by means of Monte Carlo simulations. We locate the phase transitions for several interaction ranges as expressed by the number $z$ of equivalent neighbors. For not too large $z$, the transitions fit well in the universality classes of the short-range Potts models. However, at longer ranges the transitions become discontinuous. For $q=3$ we locate a tricritical point separating the continuous and discontinuous transitions near $z=80$, and a critical fixed point between $z=8$ and 12. For $q=4$ the transition becomes discontinuous for $z > 16$. The scaling behavior of the $q=4$ model with $z=16$ approximates that of the $q=4$ merged critical-tricritical fixed point predicted by the renormalization scenario.
Phase transition of the two- and three-state quantum Potts models on the Sierpinski pyramid are studied by means of a tensor network framework, the higher-order tensor renormalization group method. Critical values of the transverse magnetic field and the magnetic exponent $beta$ are evaluated. Despite the fact that the Hausdorff dimension of the Sierpinski pyramid is exactly two $( = log_2^{~} 4)$, the obtained critical properties show that the effective dimension is lower than two.