Crossover between ordinary and normal transitions in two dimensional critical Ising films.

Abstract

We investigate two dimensional critical Ising films of width L with surface fields H(1)=H(L) in the crossover between ordinary (H(1)=0) and normal (H(1)=infinity) transitions. Using exact transfer-matrix diagonalization and density matrix renormalization-group (DMRG) methods, we calculate magnetization profiles m(z), the excess magnetization Gamma, and the analog of the solvation force f(solv) as functions of H1 for several L. Scaling functions of the above quantities deviate substantially from their asymptotic forms at fixed points for a broad region of the scaling variable LH21 approximately L/l(1), where l(1) is the length induced by the surface field H1. The scaling function for /f(solv)/ has a deep minimum near LH(2)(1)=1, which is about one order of magnitude smaller than its value at both fixed points (the "Casimir" amplitude). For weak H1 (l(1)>L) the magnetization profile has a maximum at the center of the film, and f(solv) decays much faster than L-2. For stronger H1 (1<l(1)<L), the magnetization has two maxima at a distance approximately l(1) from the walls, and the solvation force decays much slower than L-2. For L>>l(1) the solvation force decays according to the universal power law f(solv) approximately L(-2). The results of the approximate DMRG method show remarkable agreement with the exact ones.