Baxter's Solution for the Free Energy of the Chiral Potts Model

Abstract

In honor of Baxter's sixtieth birthday, we would like to review some of his work on the free energy of the chiral Potts model. In spite of the enormous complexity and difficulty of the problem, Baxter, using functional relations was able to calculate not only the free energy, but also the interfacial tension. We here show that the integral for the free energy simplifies in the superintegrable case and is identical to his earlier results using entirely different approaches. His calculations are extended to include other regions. We also attempt to clarify some of his reasoning as several steps may be mysterious at first glance.