Influence of boundary conditions on bulk properties of six-vertex model

TL;DR

This paper investigates how different boundary conditions affect the entropy of the six-vertex model, demonstrating a continuous variation from ferroelectric to periodic boundaries by merging boundary types.

Contribution

It introduces a method to interpolate boundary conditions in the six-vertex model and analyzes their impact on entropy, revealing continuous variation.

Findings

Entropy varies continuously with boundary conditions.

Merging ferroelectric and Ne9el boundaries influences entropy.

Boundary conditions significantly affect bulk properties.

Abstract

We study the influence of boundary conditions on the entropy of the six-vertex model. We consider the case of fixed boundary conditions in order to argue that the entropy of the six-vertex model vary continuously from its value for ferroelectric to periodic boundary conditions. This is done by merging the ferroelectric boundary and the N\'eel boundary.