Spin-1 Ising model in a transverse crystal field

Abstract

We investigate a ferromagnetic spin-1 Ising model with a transverse single-ion crystal-field term. By means of a mapping to the usual spin-1/2 transverse Ising model, we determine the location of the $T=0$ quantum critical point exactly in one dimension, and to high precision in higher dimensions. The nature of the excited states is also explored. We show how this approach can be generalized to higher spin values.