No Arabic abstract
We demonstrate that the occurrence of symmetry breaking phase transitions together with the emergence of a local order parameter in classical statistical physics is a consequence of the geometrical structure of probability space. To this end we investigate convex sets generated by expectation values of certain observables with respect to all possible probability distributions of classical q-state spins on a two-dimensional lattice, for several values of q. The extreme points of these sets are then given by thermal Gibbs states of the classical q-state Potts model. As symmetry breaking phase transitions and the emergence of associated order parameters are signaled by the appearance ruled surfaces on these sets, this implies that symmetry breaking is ultimately a consequence of the geometrical structure of probability space. In particular we identify the different features arising for continuous and first order phase transitions and show how to obtain critical exponents and susceptibilities from the geometrical shape of the surface set. Such convex sets thus also constitute a novel and very intuitive way of constructing phase diagrams for many body systems, as all thermodynamically relevant quantities can be very naturally read off from these sets.
The surface and bulk properties of the two-dimensional Q > 4 state Potts model in the vicinity of the first order bulk transition point have been studied by exact calculations and by density matrix renormalization group techniques. For the surface transition the complete analytical solution of the problem is presented in the $Q to infty$ limit, including the critical and tricritical exponents, magnetization profiles and scaling functions. According to the accurate numerical results the universality class of the surface transition is independent of the value of Q > 4. For the bulk transition we have numerically calculated the latent heat and the magnetization discontinuity and we have shown that the correlation lengths in the ordered and in the disordered phases are identical at the transition point.
All local bond-state densities are calculated for q-state Potts and clock models in three spatial dimensions, d=3. The calculations are done by an exact renormalization group on a hierarchical lattice, including the density recursion relations, and simultaneously are the Migdal-Kadanoff approximation for the cubic lattice. Reentrant behavior is found in the interface densities under symmetry breaking, in the sense that upon lowering temperature the value of the density first increases, then decreases to its zero value at zero temperature. For this behavior, a physical mechanism is proposed. A contrast between the phase transition of the two models is found, and explained by alignment and entropy, as the number of states q goes to infinity. For the clock models, the renormalization-group flows of up to twenty energies are used.
Fortuin-Kastelyn clusters in the critical $Q$-state Potts model are conformally invariant fractals. We obtain simulation results for the fractal dimension of the complete and external (accessible) hulls for Q=1, 2, 3, and 4, on clusters that wrap around a cylindrical system. We find excellent agreement between these results and theoretical predictions. We also obtain the probability distributions of the hull lengths and maximal heights of the clusters in this geometry and provide a conjecture for their form.
We studied the non-equilibrium dynamics of the q-state Potts model in the square lattice, after a quench to sub-critical temperatures. By means of a continuous time Monte Carlo algorithm (non-conserved order parameter dynamics) we analyzed the long term behavior of the energy and relaxation time for a wide range of quench temperatures and system sizes. For q>4 we found the existence of different dynamical regimes, according to quench temperature range. At low (but finite) temperatures and very long times the Lifshitz-Allen-Cahn domain growth behavior is interrupted with finite probability when the system stuck in highly symmetric non-equilibrium metastable states, which induce activation in the domain growth, in agreement with early predictions of Lifshitz [JETP 42, 1354 (1962)]. Moreover, if the temperature is very low, the system always gets stuck at short times in a highly disordered metastable states with finite life time, which have been recently identified as glassy states. The finite size scaling properties of the different relaxation times involved, as well as their temperature dependency are analyzed in detail.
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.