Exact solutions and related topics

Abstract

Abstract Only a limited number of models of phase transitions and critical phenomena can be solved exactly. These examples nevertheless play important roles in many aspects including the verification of the accuracy of approximation theories such as the mean-field theory and renormalization group. Mathematical methods to solve such examples are interesting in their own right and constitute an important subfield of mathematical physics. In particular the exact solution of the two-dimensional Ising model occupies an outstanding status as one of the founding studies of the modern theory of phase transitions and critical phenomena. The present chapter shows simple but typical examples of exact solutions of classical spin systems such as the one-dimensional Ising model with various boundary conditions, the n-vector model, the spherical model, the one-dimensional quantum $XY$ model, and the two-dimensional Ising model. An account on the Yang-Lee theory will also be given as a set of basic rigorous results on phase transitions.