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Legendre transforms for the Ising model

Physics Asked by PianoEntropy on December 9, 2020

I’m reading a review on the Ising model and came across a section where they discuss Legendre transforms of thermodynamic potentials. Now I’m familiar with the classical thermodynamic relations such as $F = U – TS$ (Helmholtz), $G = F + pV$ (Gibbs) and so on, but fail to see the connection with the ones proposed for spin models. In particular, the authors define (for $beta=1/T=1$)

$$ F(J, h) = – ln{Z(J, h)}, $$

$$ S(chi, m) = min_{J, h}left[{-sum_{i} h_i m_i -sum_{i < j} J_{ij} chi_{ij} – F(J, h) }right], $$

$$G(J, m) = max_{h}left[ { sum_{i} h_i m_i + F(J, h)} right] $$

Now I fail to see how this relates to thermodynamic potentials in terms $N, V, T$ and so on now that we are working with a spin model. Is there a logical derivation for why $S$ and $G$ should follow these functional forms?

One Answer

In the context of spin models one often uses Legendre transformation to switch between the magnetic field and magnetization as the independent variable. The magnetic field and the magnetization are obviously specific to this context, which is why the potentials obtained do not have special names for them. The interchange of the external and the response variables is however quite generic to thermodynamics. Some TD textbooks cover it explicitly in abstract terms, while the others limit to the particular case of $p$ and $V$ - which is the model to follow.

Answered by Vadim on December 9, 2020

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