13.4 The Ising model in two dimensions 501 a nonanalytic partition function or free energy. Criticality occurs only in the thermady- namic limit. Since real physical systems are of finite size, the manner in which finite- size effects manifest themselves as the correlation length £ approaches the system size is af considerable importance in understanding how critical singularities get rounded off in real systems, In this regard, the two-dimensional mearest-neighbor Ising model ‘on a square lattice in zero field can be solved on a finite square lattice with periodic boundary conditions (Kaufman, 1945), which allows for a detailed exploration of finite- size effects, especially near the bulk critical paint; see Ferdinand and Fisher (19691. Kaufman's solution is based on a determination of al! the eigenvalues of the transfer matrix Onsager (1944) only required the largest eigenvalue his solution was based on a strip geametry with the length of one side taken to infinity. We here consider the Ising model on a lattice with n rows and m columns with periodic boundary conditions; see Figure 13.16, Each column of a spins has 2" passible configurations, so the transfer matrix P that couples nearest-neighbor columns is 2 2" x 2" matrix of Boltzmann factors with eigenvalues Ag, with a= 1,2,...,2", Just as in the case of the ane-dimensional Ising model studied in Section 13.2, the partition function of a system with n rows and m columns can be written as the trace of a transfer matrix P: (a6) where the eigenvalues of the transfer matrix fall inta twa classes: a7 __ | @atabienny”? exp( Htyu tab tran a}. (2sinbi2ky)"* ¥ exp( f(t ya. ky2n-1]). FIGURE 12.16 0 finite square Lattice vith n= 4 rove ard im = columns, Ie wiew of the periodic boundary ‘ondiiarg sites on thelefimost colume interact with sites ar the rightmest column anc the batiom row interacts ‘wth the top rove,13.4 The Ising model in two dimensions 498 10 1 i) as gure 1) the 5 The spontaneows magnetization of aaquate lattice (4 = 4) according to {| the Orsager solution, "@ appranmation, anc (2) the Beagq-llhares appecramation. which indicates a very fast variation with T. The detailed dependence of Tp on Tis shown in Figure 13.15; for comparison, the results of the Bragg-Williams approximation and the Bethe approximation are also included. We infer that the critical exponent f for this model is }, which is very different from the mean field value of }. ‘Onsager also calculated the correlation length ¢ of the lattice, which showed that the critical exponent 1— insharp contrast to the classical value of }. Finally, he setup calculations for the correlation function gir) fromwhich one could infer that the exponent in in disagreement with the classical value of zero, Precise asymptotic expres- sions for the correlation function in different regimes of temperature were derived by later authors (Fisher, 1959; Kadanof, 19663; Au-Vang and Perk, 1984): Heke - 5 ne ain Se etter wy for T > Te, ae ete, Fe (ue- Kar! 142i for T < T,, and ann peppcut (43), i in the last expression, ¢'(x) denotes the derivative of the Riemann zeta function. ‘We nate from expressions (41) and (42) that the correlation length , while diverging at T= Tz, is finite on both sides of the critical point This feature is peculiar to the scalar model (n= 1) only, for in the case af vector models (n z 2), € turns out to be infinite at all T's T,.500 Chapter 13 + Phase Trat jams! Exact (ar Almast Exact] Results far Various Models ‘The zero-field susceptibility af this system has also been worked aut (see Barouch etal., 1973; Tracy and McCay, 1973; Wu etal, 1978); asymptotically, ane finds that Nut [Cu for 20 (44a) He [ein for 50, (4a) where ¢, as usual, is (7 - Te)/Te while the constants C, and C_ are about 0.96258 and 0.02554, respectively: We see that the critical exponent y = y= #, as opposed to the mean field value of 1, and the ratio C,/C_ = 37.69, as oppased to the mean field value of 2. Assembling all the exponents in one place, we have for the two-dimensional Ising model 1 sal . eaafa Glog, se2. yar'at. as Since this madel has not yet been solved in the presence of a field, a direct evaluation of the exponent 4 has not been possible. Assuming the validity af the scaling relations, however, we can safely conclude that 6= 15 — again very different from the classical value of 3. All inall, the results of this section tell us very clearly and loudly, how inadequate the mean field theory can be. Before we close this section, a few remarks seem to be in order. First af all, it may be mentioned that for the model under consideration ane can also calculate the interfacial tension s, which may be defined as the “free energy associated, per unit area, with the interfaces between the domains of up spins and those of down spins"; in our analogy with the gas-liquid systems, this carrespands to the conventional surface tension «. The corre- spandingexponent ., that determines the manner in which s+ @.as T+ T,—, turns aut be 1 for this model; see Baxter (1982), This indeed abeys the scaling relation «=(d-1)v, as stated in Problem 12.26, Secand, we would like to point out that, while the salution of the two-dimensional Ising model was the first exact treatment that exposed the inade- quacy of the mean field theory, it was also the first to disclose the underlying universality of the problern, As discavered by Onsager himselt, if the spin-spin interactions were allowed to have different strengths, J and J’, in the horizontal and vertical directions of the lattice, the specific-heat divergence at T = J, continued to be logarithmic— independentlyof the ratio J’/J — even though the value af Ty itself and of the various amplitudes appearing in the final expressions were modified. A similar result for the spontaneous magnetization was obtained by Chang (1952) wha showed that, regardless af the value af J'//, the expa- nent f continued to be £. Further corroborative evidence for universality came from the analysis of two-dimensional lattices other than the square one which, despite structural differences, led to the same critical exponents as the ones listed in equation (415} 13.4.4 The two-dimensional |sing model on a finite lattice Phase uansitions, viewed as eri a statistical mechanical model wi ical phenomena, cannot occur in a finite system since a finite number af degrees of freedom cannot have