Field theory of the two-dimensional Ising model: Conformal invariance, order and disorder, and bosonization.

Abstract

In this paper we review the critical Ising model by using the properties of conformal invariance. We use the known mapping of the Ising model to a theory of Majorana fermions and recognize that the self-duality property appears as a double degeneracy of the periodic ground state. The Ising model is doubled obtaining an Ashkin-Teller model (two Ising models coupled with a four-spin coupling) at the decoupling point. Using the bosonization technique this model is mapped onto the Gaussian model at a particular value of the temperature (K=1/\ensuremath{\pi}). This allows us to give the expressions for products of order, disorder, and energy operators of both Ising models in terms of operators in the Gaussian model. We compute several correlation functions of order, disorder, energy and spinor operators and show that they reproduce the operator product expansions predicted by conformal invariance. We explicitly discuss the physics by which the correlation functions obtained from the Gaussian model (a theory with conformal anomaly c=1) reproduce those of the Ising model (c=1/2). This provides a proof of Kadanoff and Brown's equivalences and conjectures. We provide a simple prescription to compute all n-point correlation functions at criticality, including mixed correlations of order, disorder, energy, and spinor operators. A bosonized form of the continuum limit of the transfer matrix for the critical Ising model is constructed. It is nonlocal and contains both spin-wave and vortex operators of the Gaussian model.