Potts model of magnetism (invited)

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The Potts model is a generalization of the Ising model of magnetism to more-than-two components. First considered by Potts in 1952, the problem has aroused considerable interest in recent years. It has been shown that the model is very rich in its content and, in addition, the extra degree of freedom exhibited by the number of components permits the model to be realized in a wide range of physical systems. In this paper we review those aspects of the Potts model related to its contents as a model of magnetism, focusing particular attention to the results obtained since a previous review was written. Topics reviewed include the upper and lower critical dimensionalities, critical properties, and some exact and rigorous results, for both the ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic models.