Constrained variational problem with applications to the Ising model

Abstract

We continue our study of the behavior of the two-dimensional nearest neighbor ferromagnetic Ising model under an external magnetic fieldh, initiated in our earlier work. We strengthen further a result previously proven by Martirosyan at low enough temperature, which roughly states that for finite systems with (−)-boundary conditions under a positive external field, the boundary effect dominates in the system if the linear size of the system is of orderB/h withB small enough, while ifB is large enough, then the external field dominates in the system. In our earlier work this result was extended to every subcritical value of the temperature. Here for every subcritical value of the temperature we show the existence of a critical valueB 0 (T) which separates the two regimes specified above. We also find the asymptotic shape of the region occupied by the (+)-phase in the second regime, which turns out to be a “squeezed Wulff shape”. The main step in our study is the solution of the variational problem of finding the curve minimizing the Wulff functional, which curve is constrained to the unit square. Other tools used are the results and techniques developed to study large deviations for the block magnetization in the absence of the magnetic field, extended to all temperatures below the critical one.