Transfer Matrices for the Partition Function of the Potts Model on Toroidal Lattice Strips

TL;DR

This paper develops a general method to compute transfer matrices for the Potts model's partition function on various lattice strips with toroidal and Klein bottle boundary conditions, enabling exact calculations for arbitrary widths.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic approach to derive transfer matrices for the Potts model on different lattice strips with complex boundary conditions, including explicit formulas for determinants and traces.

Findings

Explicit transfer matrix formulas for square, triangular, and honeycomb lattices.

Determinant and trace formulas for transfer matrices.

Application to Tutte polynomials and illustrative examples.

Abstract

We present a method for calculating transfer matrices for the $q$-state Potts model partition functions $Z(G,q,v)$, for arbitrary $q$ and temperature variable $v$, on strip graphs $G$ of the square (sq), triangular (tri), and honeycomb (hc) lattices of width $L_y$ vertices and of arbitrarily great length $L_x$ vertices, subject to toroidal and Klein bottle boundary conditions. For the toroidal case we express the partition function as $Z(\Lambda, L_y \times L_x,q,v) = \sum_{d=0}^{L_y} \sum_j b_j^{(d)} (\lambda_{Z,\Lambda,L_y,d,j})^m$, where $\Lambda$ denotes lattice type, $b_j^{(d)}$ are specified polynomials of degree $d$ in $q$, $\lambda_{Z,\Lambda,L_y,d,j}$ are eigenvalues of the transfer matrix $T_{Z,\Lambda,L_y,d}$ in the degree-$d$ subspace, and $m=L_x$ ($L_x/2$) for $\Lambda=sq, tri (hc)$, respectively. An analogous formula is given for Klein bottle strips. We exhibit a method for calculating $T_{Z,\Lambda,L_y,d}$ for arbitrary $L_y$. In particular, we find some very simple formulas for the determinant $det(T_{Z,\Lambda,L_y,d})$, and trace $Tr(T_{Z,\Lambda,L_y})$. Corresponding results are given for the equivalent Tutte polynomials for these lattice strips and illustrative examples are included.