The dynamical zeta function and transfer operators for the Kac-Baker model

Abstract

The Kac-Baker model describes a 1-dim. classical lattice spin system with exponentially fast decaying two body interaction. The model was introduced by M. Kac and G. Baker to investigate the phenomenon of phase transition in systems with weak long-range interactions like van der Waals gas. Ruelle's dynamical zeta function for this model can be expressed in terms of Fredholm determinants of two transfer operators and hence is a meromorphic function. One of the two operators, found by M. Kac, is an integral operator with symmetric kernel acting in the Hilbert space of square integrable functions on the line. The other one is Ruelle's transfer operator acting in some Banach space of holomorphic observables of the system. In this paper we show how the Kac operator can be explicitly related basically through the Segal-Bargmann transform to the Ruelle operator restricted to a certain Segal-Bargmann space of entire functions in the complex plane. This allows us to show that Ruelle's zeta function for the Kac-Baker model has infinitely many non-trivial zeros on the real axis. In a special case we can show the existence of also infinitely many trivial zeros on the line Re s = ln 2 in the complex s-plane. Hence some kind of Riemann hypothesis seems to hold for this dynamical zeta function.