Phase Transitions and the Ising Model

Abstract

Chapter 17 presented one example of a phase transition, the van der Waals gas. This chapter provides another, the Ising model, a widely studied model of phase transitions. We first give the solution for the Ising chain (one-dimensional model), including the introduction of the transfer matrix method. Higher dimensions are treated in the Mean Field Approximation (MFA), which is also extended to Landau theory. The Ising model is deceptively simple. It can be defined in a few words, but it displays astonishingly rich behavior. It originated as a model of ferromagnetism in which the magnetic moments were localized on lattice sites and had only two allowed values.