Use the infinite translation-invariant chain first. Set and Fourier-transform the exchange matrix:
For positive this is strictly positive. Its reciprocal is a linear polynomial in , proving the nearest-neighbour form of the exponentially coupled Ising inverse kernel:
Expanding the squared difference gives
Since , substitution into part (a) yields
This is the exact bulk identity. A finite periodic version uses the periodized coupling ; its discrete Fourier symbols are the same and the squared differences wrap around the ring. Simply truncating the exponential at open ends gives a different inverse at those ends.
For an open chain of sites with the literal finite matrix , the open-chain endpoint corrections for an exponential Ising kernel are explicit:
The inverse has endpoint diagonal entries , interior diagonal entries and adjacent entries . Multiplication by the original geometric matrix verifies every entry. These boundary terms affect boundary amplitudes, but not the bulk free-energy density in the thermodynamic limit at fixed .