Potts model

The Potts model, proposed by Renfrey B. Potts in 1952 , is a generalisation of the Ising model to more than two components. For a general discussion on Potts models see Refs . In practice one has a lattice system. The sites of the lattice can be occupied by particles of different species, $S=1,2,\cdots ,q$.

The energy of the system, $E$, is defined as:

Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle E = - K \sum_{ \langle ij \rangle } \delta (S_i,S_j) }

where Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle K } is the coupling constant, Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle \langle ij \rangle } indicates that the sum is performed exclusively over pairs of nearest neighbour sites, and Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle \delta(S_i,S_j) } is the Kronecker delta. Note that the particular case Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle q=2 } is equivalent to the Ising model.

Phase transitions

Considering a symmetric situation (i.e. equal chemical potential for all the species):

$\mu _{1}=\mu _{2}=\cdots =\mu _{q}$;

the Potts model exhibits order-disorder phase transitions. For space dimensionality Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle d=2 } , and low values of Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle q } the transitions are continuous (Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle E(T) } is a continuous function), but the heat capacity, Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle C(T) = (\partial E/\partial T) } , diverges at the transition temperature. The critical behaviour of different values of Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle q } belong to (or define) different universality classes of criticality For space dimensionality Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle d=3 } , the transitions for Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle q \ge 3 } are first order (Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle E } shows a discontinuity at the transition temperature).

See also

• Ashkin-Teller model
• Kac model

References

Related reading

• Nathan Duff and Baron Peters "Nucleation in a Potts lattice gas model of crystallization from solution", Journal of Chemical Physics 131 184101 (2009)