Paper 4, Section II, C

Statistical Physics
Part II, 2015

The Ising model consists of NN particles, labelled by ii, arranged on a DD-dimensional Euclidean lattice with periodic boundary conditions. Each particle has spin up si=+1s_{i}=+1, or down si=1s_{i}=-1, and the energy in the presence of a magnetic field BB is

E=BisiJi,jsisjE=-B \sum_{i} s_{i}-J \sum_{\langle i, j\rangle} s_{i} s_{j}

where J>0J>0 is a constant and i,j\langle i, j\rangle indicates that the second sum is over each pair of nearest neighbours (every particle has 2D2 D nearest neighbours). Let β=1/kBT\beta=1 / k_{B} T, where TT is the temperature.

(i) Express the average spin per particle, m=(isi)/Nm=\left(\sum_{i}\left\langle s_{i}\right\rangle\right) / N, in terms of the canonical partition function ZZ.

(ii) Show that in the mean-field approximation

Z=C[Z1(βBeff)]NZ=C\left[Z_{1}\left(\beta B_{\mathrm{eff}}\right)\right]^{N}

where Z1Z_{1} is a single-particle partition function, Beff B_{\text {eff }} is an effective magnetic field which you should find in terms of B,J,DB, J, D and mm, and CC is a prefactor which you should also evaluate.

(iii) Deduce an equation that determines mm for general values of B,JB, J and temperature TT. Without attempting to solve for mm explicitly, discuss how the behaviour of the system depends on temperature when B=0B=0, deriving an expression for the critical temperature TcT_{c} and explaining its significance.

(iv) Comment briefly on whether the results obtained using the mean-field approximation for B=0B=0 are consistent with an expression for the free energy of the form

F(m,T)=F0(T)+a2(TTc)m2+b4m4F(m, T)=F_{0}(T)+\frac{a}{2}\left(T-T_{c}\right) m^{2}+\frac{b}{4} m^{4}

where aa and bb are positive constants.