acta physica slovaca

Acta Physica Slovaca 65, No.4, 235-367 (2015) (133 pages)

A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE ISING AND ISING-LIKE MODELS: MEAN-FIELD, EFFECTIVE-FIELD AND EXACT RESULTS

Jozef Strečka, Michal Jačšcur
    Department of Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics, Faculty of Science, P. J. Šafárik University, Park Angelinum 9, 040 01 Košice, Slovakia

Full text: ::pdf :: (Received 23 October 2015, accepted 26 October 2015)

Abstract: The present article provides a tutorial review on how to treat the Ising and Ising-like models within the mean-field, effective-field and exact methods. The mean-field approach is illustrated on four particular examples of the lattice-statistical models: the spin-1/2 Ising model in a longitudinal field, the spin-1 Blume-Capel model in a longitudinal field, the mixed-spin Ising model in a longitudinal field and the spin-S Ising model in a transverse field. The mean-field solutions of the spin-1 Blume-Capel model and the mixed-spin Ising model demonstrate a change of continuous phase transitions to discontinuous ones at a tricritical point. A continuous quantum phase transition of the spin-S Ising model driven by a transverse magnetic field is also explored within the mean-field method. The effective-field theory is elaborated within a single- and two-spin cluster approach in order to demonstrate an efficiency of this approximate method, which affords superior approximate results with respect to the mean-field results. The long-standing problem of this method concerned with a self-consistent determination of the free energy is also addressed in detail. More specifically, the effective-field theory is adapted for the spin-1/2 Ising model in a longitudinal field, the spin-S Blume-Capel model in a longitudinal field and the spin-1/2 Ising model in a transverse field. The particular attention is paid to a comprehensive analysis of tricritical point, continuous and discontinuous phase transitions of the spin-S Blume-Capel model. Exact results for the spin-1/2 Ising chain, spin-1 Blume-Capel chain and mixed-spin Ising chain in a longitudinal field are obtained using the transfer-matrix method, the crucial steps of which are also reviewed when deriving the exact solution of the spin-1/2 Ising model on a square lattice. The critical points of the spin-1/2 Ising model on several planar (square, honeycomb, triangular, kagome , decorated honeycomb, etc.) lattices are rigorously obtained with the help of dual, star-triangle and decoration-iteration transformations. The mapping transformation technique is subsequently adapted to obtain exact results for the critical temperature and spontaneous magnetization of the mixed-spin Ising model on decorated planar lattices and three-coordinated archimedean (honeycomb, bathroom-tile and square-hexagon-dodecagon) lattices. It is shown that an increase in the coordination number of the mixed-spin Ising model on decorated planar lattices gives rise to reentrant phase transitions, while the critical temperature of the mixed-spin Ising model on a regular honeycomb lattice is always greater than the critical temperature of the same model on two semi-regular archimedean lattices with the same coordination number. The effect of selective site dilution of the mixed-spin Ising model on a honeycomb lattice upon phase diagrams is also examined in detail. Last but not least, the review affords a brief account of the Ising-like models previously solved within the mean-field, effective-field and exact methods along with a few comments on their future applicability.

PACS: 05.50.+q; 05.70.Jk; 75.10.-b; 75.10.Hk; 75.10.Jm; 75.30.Kz; 75.40.Cx
Keywords: Ising model, Blume-Capel model, Mean-field theory, Effective-field theory, Exact results, Mapping transformations, Critical behavior, Mixed spins, Transverse field
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