Spectral-density method for classical systems: Heisenberg ferromagnet

Abstract

We formulate the spectral-density method in classical statistical mechanics in strict analogy with the known quantum version, and we apply it to the classical Heisenberg ferromagnetic model in an external field. A new formula for the magnetization in the classical formulation of spin-vector Green functions is derived for arbitrary spatial dimensionality. Furthermore, the static properties of the one- and three-dimensional cases are considered in detail. We obtain accurate results over a wide range of temperatures with the external field for the one-dimensional model and without field for the three-dimensional model. In the first case very good agreement with the exact numerical transfer-matrix data is also found in the region of higher temperature where the interacting-boson approach fails. In particular the zero-field susceptibility results are found to be consistent with the exact results obtained by Fisher.