No Arabic abstract
We determine the general structure of the partition function of the $q$-state Potts model in an external magnetic field, $Z(G,q,v,w)$ for arbitrary $q$, temperature variable $v$, and magnetic field variable $w$, on cyclic, Mobius, and free strip graphs $G$ of the square (sq), triangular (tri), and honeycomb (hc) lattices with width $L_y$ and arbitrarily great length $L_x$. For the cyclic case we prove that the partition function has the form $Z(Lambda,L_y times L_x,q,v,w)=sum_{d=0}^{L_y} tilde c^{(d)} Tr[(T_{Z,Lambda,L_y,d})^m]$, where $Lambda$ denotes the lattice type, $tilde c^{(d)}$ are specified polynomials of degree $d$ in $q$, $T_{Z,Lambda,L_y,d}$ is the corresponding transfer matrix, and $m=L_x$ ($L_x/2$) for $Lambda=sq, tri (hc)$, respectively. An analogous formula is given for Mobius strips, while only $T_{Z,Lambda,L_y,d=0}$ appears for free strips. We exhibit a method for calculating $T_{Z,Lambda,L_y,d}$ for arbitrary $L_y$ and give illustrative examples. Explicit results for arbitrary $L_y$ are presented for $T_{Z,Lambda,L_y,d}$ with $d=L_y$ and $d=L_y-1$. We find very simple formulas for the determinant $det(T_{Z,Lambda,L_y,d})$. We also give results for self-dual cyclic strips of the square lattice.
We calculate the partition function of the $q$-state Potts model on arbitrary-length cyclic ladder graphs of the square and triangular lattices, with a generalized external magnetic field that favors or disfavors a subset of spin values ${1,...,s}$ with $s le q$. For the case of antiferromagnet spin-spin coupling, these provide exactly solved models that exhibit an onset of frustration and competing interactions in the context of a novel type of tensor-product $S_s otimes S_{q-s}$ global symmetry, where $S_s$ is the permutation group on $s$ objects.
We calculate zeros of the $q$-state Potts model partition function on $m$th-iterate Sierpinski graphs, $S_m$, in the variable $q$ and in a temperature-like variable, $y$. We infer some asymptotic properties of the loci of zeros in the limit $m to infty$ and relate these to thermodynamic properties of the $q$-state Potts ferromagnet and antiferromagnet on the Sierpinski gasket fractal, $S_infty$.
We present an analytic study of the Potts model partition function on two different types of self-similar lattices of triangular shape with non integer Hausdorff dimension. Both types of lattices analyzed here are interesting examples of non-trivial thermodynamics in less than two dimensions. First, the Sierpinski gasket is considered. It is shown that, by introducing suitable geometric coefficients, it is possible to reduce the computation of the partition function to a dynamical system, whose variables are directly connected to (the arising of) frustration on macroscopic scales, and to determine the possible phases of the system. The same method is then used to analyse the Hanoi graph. Again, dynamical system theory provides a very elegant way to determine the phase diagram of the system. Then, exploiting the analysis of the basins of attractions of the corresponding dynamical systems, we construct various examples of self-similar lattices with more than one critical temperature. These multiple critical temperatures correspond to crossing phases with different degrees of frustration.
A phenomenological approach to the ferromagnetic two dimensional Potts model on square lattice is proposed. Our goal is to present a simple functional form that obeys the known properties possessed by the free energy of the q-state Potts model. The duality symmetry of the 2D Potts model together with the known results on its critical exponent {alpha} allow to fix consistently the details of the proposed expression for the free energy. The agreement of the analytic ansatz with numerical data in the q=3 case is very good at high and low temperatures as well as at the critical point. It is shown that the q>4 cases naturally fit into the same scheme and that one should also expect a good agreement with numerical data. The limiting q=4 case is shortly discussed.
Any two-dimensional infinite regular lattice G can be produced by tiling the plane with a finite subgraph B of G; we call B a basis of G. We introduce a two-parameter graph polynomial P_B(q,v) that depends on B and its embedding in G. The algebraic curve P_B(q,v) = 0 is shown to provide an approximation to the critical manifold of the q-state Potts model, with coupling v = exp(K)-1, defined on G. This curve predicts the phase diagram both in the ferromagnetic (v>0) and antiferromagnetic (v<0) regions. For larger bases B the approximations become increasingly accurate, and we conjecture that P_B(q,v) = 0 provides the exact critical manifold in the limit of infinite B. Furthermore, for some lattices G, or for the Ising model (q=2) on any G, P_B(q,v) factorises for any choice of B: the zero set of the recurrent factor then provides the exact critical manifold. In this sense, the computation of P_B(q,v) can be used to detect exact solvability of the Potts model on G. We illustrate the method for the square lattice, where the Potts model has been exactly solved, and the kagome lattice, where it has not. For the square lattice we correctly reproduce the known phase diagram, including the antiferromagnetic transition and the singularities in the Berker-Kadanoff phase. For the kagome lattice, taking the smallest basis with six edges we recover a well-known (but now refuted) conjecture of F.Y. Wu. Larger bases provide successive improvements on this formula, giving a natural extension of Wus approach. The polynomial predictions are in excellent agreement with numerical computations. For v>0 the accuracy of the predicted critical coupling v_c is of the order 10^{-4} or 10^{-5} for the 6-edge basis, and improves to 10^{-6} or 10^{-7} for the largest basis studied (with 36 edges).