Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-theoretical-physics-major-option-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2016/2/a/solution
Past exam of the theoretical physics major option course of the University of Oxford 2016 2 a Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-25
For a uniform classical spin with , the energy per bond isThe strict inequalities among the couplings make the direction the unique easy axis. ThusThese uniform configurations are also global classical minima: the largest singular value of the diagonal exchange matrix is , so each bond has energy at least , and both configurations saturate that bound.
A global rotation by about the axis sends to , preserves every exchange product, and exchanges the two ground states. A rotation about does the same. The broken discrete symmetry can be represented by either operation.
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