Ising model in planar lacunary and fractal lattices: A path counting approach

Abstract

The method of counting loops for calculating the partition function of the Ising model on the two dimensional square lattice is extended to lacunary planar lattices, especially scale invariant fractal lattices, the Sierpi\'nsky carpets with different values of the scale invariance ratio and of the number of deleted sites. The critical temperature of the Ising model on these lattices is exactly calculated for finite iteration steps, and for a range of the scale invariance ratio $n$ from 3 to 1000 and of the number of deleted sites from $(n-2)^2$ to $(n-10)^2$. The critical temperature at the limit of an infinite number of iteration of the segmentation process is asymptotically extrapolated. Comparison is made with results obtained previously by numerical methods. Thermodynamical functions are also calculated and the fractal spectra of the Ising partition functions on several examples of Sierpi\'nski carpets are illustrated.