Statistical Mechanics of Equilibrium and Nonequilibrium Phase Transitions: The Yang-Lee Formalism

TL;DR

This paper reviews the Yang-Lee formalism, a powerful method using partition function zeros to analyze both equilibrium and nonequilibrium phase transitions, highlighting recent advances and applications.

Contribution

It provides an overview of the Yang-Lee approach and discusses recent progress in extending it to nonequilibrium phase transitions.

Findings

Partition function zeros reveal phase transition locations.

The formalism applies to equilibrium and nonequilibrium systems.

Recent breakthroughs extend the theory's applicability.

Abstract

Showing that the location of the zeros of the partition function can be used to study phase transitions, Yang and Lee initiated an ambitious and very fruitful approach. We give an overview of the results obtained using this approach. After an elementary introduction to the Yang-Lee formalism, we summarize results concerning equilibrium phase transitions. We also describe recent attempts and breakthroughs in extending this theory to nonequilibrium phase transitions.