Three-component model and tricritical points: A renormalization-group study. Two dimensions

Abstract

The global phase diagram for a three-component lattice gas or spin-one Ising model with general single-site and nearest-neighbor "ferromagnetic" interactions is worked out for two-dimensional lattices using a Migdal-Kadanoff recursion relation. It differs in important qualitative respects from the corresponding mean-field phase diagram. The set of fixed points and flows provides the characteristic phase diagrams of the three-state Potts multicritical point and the ordinary ($n=1$) tricritical point in a complete set of symmetry-breaking fields. The latter is associated, in this renormalization-group scheme, with seven distinct critical fixed points, a number which is surprisingly large.