Scaling dimensions and conformal anomaly in anisotropic lattice spin models

Abstract

The effect of anisotropic interactions on the eigenvalue spectrum of the row-to-row transfer matrix of critical lattice spin models is investigated. It is verified that the predictions of conformal theory apply to anisotropic systems if one allows for spatial rescaling by incorporating an anisotropy factor zeta =(ay/ax) sin theta where ay and ax are lattice spacings and theta is an angle describing the anisotropy. For exactly solvable models these anisotropy angles can be calculated analytically using corner transfer matrices. This is done for the eight-vertex model, hard hexagons and interacting hard squares and it is found that theta = pi u/ lambda , 10u/3 and 5u respectively where u is the spectral parameter and lambda is the crossing parameter. For each of these models, the amplitude of the finite-size corrections to the free energy at criticality is found to be of the form pi zeta c/6N2 where zeta is the anisotropy factor and the central charge or conformal anomaly is given by c=1, 4/5 and 7/10 respectively. This is an analytic result for the eight-vertex model. For the hard hexagon and square models the largest eigenvalues are found accurately by numerically solving their inversion identities for various anisotropies and strip widths up to N=48. Finally, the authors argue that the anisotropy angle for magnetic hard squares and the q-state Potts models is also given by theta = pi u/ lambda , so this result is quite general.