Ising model

• History of the Ising model

Ising Model

The Ising model is commonly defined over an ordered lattice. Each site of the lattice can adopt two states: either UP (S=+1) or DOWN (S=-1).

The energy of the system is the sum of pair interactions between nearest neighbors.

${\frac {U}{k_{B}T}}=-K\sum _{\langle ij\rangle }S_{i}S_{j}$

where $\langle ij\rangle$ indicates that the sum is done over nearest neighbors, and $S_{i}$ indicates the state of the i-th site.

$K$ is called the Coupling constant.

1-dimensional Ising model

• 1-dimensional Ising model (exact solution)

2-dimensional Ising model

Solved by Lars Onsager in 1944.

• Lars Onsager "Crystal Statistics. I. A Two-Dimensional Model with an Order-Disorder Transition", Physical Review 65 pp. 117 - 149 (1944)

3-dimensional Ising model

Sorin Istrail has shown that the solution of Ising's model cannot be extended into three dimensions for any lattice:

• Three-dimensional proof for Ising model impossible, Sandia researcher claims to have shown
• Sorin Istrail "Statistical mechanics, three-dimensionality and NP-completeness: I. Universality of intracatability for the partition function of the Ising model across non-planar surfaces", Proceedings of the thirty-second annual ACM symposium on Theory of computing pp. 87 - 96 (2000)

See also

• History of the Ising model