A brief account of the Ising and Ising-like models: Mean-field, effective-field and exact results

TL;DR

This paper reviews analytical and exact methods for solving Ising and Ising-like models, highlighting phase transitions, quantum effects, and the impact of lattice structure on critical phenomena.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive tutorial on mean-field, effective-field, and exact solutions for various Ising models, including recent advances and applications.

Findings

Mean-field solutions reveal tricritical points in spin-1 Blume-Capel and mixed-spin models.

Exact solutions determine critical points and phase diagrams for several lattice geometries.

Reentrant phase transitions occur with increased lattice coordination in mixed-spin models.

Abstract

The article provides a tutorial review on how to treat Ising models within mean-field (MF), effective-field (EF) and exact methods. MF solutions of the spin-1 Blume-Capel (BC) model and the mixed-spin Ising model demonstrate a change of continuous phase transitions to discontinuous ones at a tricritical point. A quantum phase transition of the spin-S Ising model driven by a transverse field is explored within MF method. EF theory is elaborated within a single- and two-spin cluster approach to demonstrate an efficiency of this approximate method. The long-standing problem of this method concerned with a self-consistent determination of the free energy is addressed. EF theory is adapted for the spin-1/2 Ising model, the spin-S BC model and the transverse Ising model. The particular attention is paid to continuous and discontinuous transitions. Exact results for the spin-1/2 Ising chain, spin-1 BC chain and mixed-spin Ising chain are obtained using the transfer-matrix method, the crucial steps of which are reviewed for a spin-1/2 Ising square lattice. Critical points of the spin-1/2 Ising model on several lattices are rigorously obtained with the help of dual, star-triangle and decoration-iteration transformations. Mapping transformations are adapted to obtain exact results for the mixed-spin Ising model on planar lattices. An increase in the coordination number of the mixed-spin Ising model on decorated planar lattices gives rise to reentrant transitions, while the critical temperature of the mixed-spin Ising model on a regular honeycomb lattice is always greater than that of two semi-regular archimedean lattices. The effect of selective site dilution of the mixed-spin Ising model on a honeycomb lattice upon phase diagrams is examined. The review affords a brief account of the Ising models solved within MF, EF and exact methods along with a few comments on their future applicability.