Bifurcation analysis of the sixteen-vertex model

Abstract

We shall construct a hierarchy of subclasses of the 16-vertex model having qualitatively different symmetry properties. We determine the bifurcation points in the parameter space of the model where new symmetry elements are added to the invariance group of the partition function. In this paper we restrict ourselves to the study of site-dependent transformations converting a homogeneous 16-vertex model into a different homogeneous model. Apart from a trivial transformation, resulting in a change of sign of all vertex weights, such site-dependent transformations exist only for those points in parameter space where particular relations are satisfied. The solution of these relations gives rise to three 6-parameter families of models, two of which are equivalent to the general 8-vertex model, and two families of 4-parameter models. The primary bifurcation models depending on six parameters contain three different types of secondary bifurcation models, depending on 4 parameters, one of which is equivalent to Baxter's symmetric 8-vertex model.