When an energy Hamiltonian contains , differentiating its partition function gives . Translation invariance converts this to the connected-correlation sum. A dimensionless source removes the explicit inverse-temperature factor. In continuum physical coordinates the lattice sum includes the site-density factor . A selected pure thermodynamic phase is needed below an ordered transition to avoid a macroscopic mixture contribution.
An order parameter distinguishes thermodynamic phases and transforms under the symmetry that may be broken. For a scalar ferromagnet it is the magnetization per site; a disordered zero-field phase has , while ordered pure thermodynamic phases have . In a fluid one can instead use the density measured relative to its critical value; the field conjugate to it is then related to the chemical potential rather than literally a magnetic field. A nonzero value in the presence of an explicit conjugate field is not by itself evidence of a spontaneous transition.
The LG theory describes a slowly varying local order parameter by a symmetry-constrained free-energy functional, for example
At , a symmetry excludes odd powers. The coefficients are assumed analytic functions of the controls near the transition, and the expansion is stabilized by a positive highest retained even coefficient. The Landau approximation obtains equilibrium by minimizing this functional, neglecting long-wavelength fluctuation corrections. Its nonconvex local potential describes distinct candidate phases and mean-field metastability; the exact thermodynamic potential is convexified when macroscopic mixtures are admitted.
In a finite symmetric system, the zero-field expectation of can vanish even below the transition because both ordered orientations are sampled. Spontaneous order is defined by taking the thermodynamic limit before removing a selecting field, for example . This distinction also matters for the connected correlations used below.
Work in a translation-invariant pure thermodynamic phase, and write to distinguish inverse temperature from the order-parameter exponent. The connected correlation function is
Away from criticality in the massive scalar order channel, it decays exponentially, possibly multiplied by an algebraic factor. An exponential correlation length is defined by when that limit exists. At a continuous transition diverges and the critical decay is algebraic. In an ordered symmetric mixture, a nondecaying contribution can remain; selecting a pure branch prevents confusing it with connected critical fluctuations.
Let and . Differentiating the partition function with the energy term gives the correlation-function susceptibility sum rule
If the source is instead the dimensionless , the explicit inverse-temperature factor is absent. In continuum physical coordinates the lattice sum is approximately .
Choose a normalized blocking kernel such that , replacing the sum by an integral for continuous variables. A deterministic example is a product of delta functions imposing that each coarse variable equals the average of spins in a block of sites, with its field normalization included consistently. Define the effective Boltzmann weight by
Kernel normalization makes the blocked partition function exactly equal to the original. Its coarse-grained variables retain the long-distance observables through their defining relation to the original fields. An exact RG step generally generates all symmetry-allowed operators; keeping only a small coupling set is an approximation, not an exact closure assumption. The geometrical coarse lattice has
so its physical volume is unchanged. A subsequent coordinate rescaling may restore the numerical lattice spacing to its initial value, which is the equivalent rescaled-coordinate convention.
Here define as free energy per lattice site, . Exact partition-function invariance gives
Because multiplies the identity operator, a blocking step has , where is the generated constant per blocked site. With this implies
The identity-operator contribution to renormalization-group free energy includes the eliminated modes' entropy, connected vacuum terms and field-measure normalization. It cannot be discarded when calculating an absolute free energy, even though it cancels out of normalized correlation functions.
There is a useful convention behind the word “singular” in this inhomogeneous equation. After removing , still contains a regular coupling-dependent background. If and , then the genuinely nonanalytic part obeys . Thus the printed inhomogeneous representative and homogeneous singular scaling below are consistent after background subtraction. At resonances or marginal points this subtraction may leave additive or multiplicative logarithms; a strictly homogeneous pure-power form is then qualified accordingly.
A renormalization-group fixed point satisfies . Diagonalizing the linearized map gives scaling coordinates . For increasing coarse-graining length, defines a relevant operator, an irrelevant operator, and a marginal operator, whose fate needs nonlinear analysis. Here the are logarithmic scaling exponents: the eigenvalues of the discrete Jacobian matrix are , not the numbers themselves. The critical surface is the stable manifold flowing into the critical fixed point after every relevant scaling field is tuned to zero. A repulsive renormalization-group trajectory leaves the fixed point along relevant directions and flows toward a different long-distance phase.
Figure 1.
Linearized renormalization-group flows in a zero-field slice and the relevant-field plane
.
For the requested two relevant fields, take and , with . Ignoring nonsingular irrelevant corrections and choosing a total blocking scale , the homogeneous singular free-energy density obeys
Choose so the renormalized thermal field is . This proves
Metric factors and regular analytic redefinitions of the scaling fields only change amplitudes. Likewise , so at the correlation-length critical exponent is . Two thermal derivatives of give the heat-capacity critical exponent , proving the hyperscaling relation
Two field derivatives also give ; one field derivative gives , and using to set the blocking scale on the critical isotherm gives . These statements assume that no dangerously irrelevant coupling makes the scaling function singular as it is removed. In particular the naive hyperscaling form need not describe the quartic ordered phase above four dimensions, where its stabilizing quartic coupling is dangerously irrelevant. That restriction reconciles this derivation with the mean-field exponents and Question 3.
The scaling form of the connected correlation function is in the continuum long-distance regime. For , tends to a finite nonzero constant. For , it decays exponentially with a possible algebraic prefactor; an isolated massive pole gives the familiar Ornstein--Zernike correlation function tail with a temperature-dependent amplitude. Exponential decay is the essential feature; the same critical algebraic power need not remain the exact large-distance prefactor.
Using the susceptibility sum rule and spherical integration gives
For and an ordinary exponentially decaying scaling function the integral tends to a finite constant: it converges at zero because is finite, and at infinity because of the exponential decay. Microscopic distances add a regular background. Thus , establishing the Fisher scaling relation
For a continuous field, field scaling and anomalous dimension give
This field renormalization is additional to the canonical engineering factor . It makes . Invariance of the uniform source coupling then gives , agreeing with the susceptibility exponent above. With a convention , the fixed-point choice is ; the sign of the logarithmic derivative depends on this stated convention.
Pure thermodynamic phase 2026-10-06
A pure thermodynamic phase is an extremal equilibrium Gibbs state rather than a probabilistic mixture of distinct macroscopic phases. On an ordered Ising branch, taking the thermodynamic limit before removing a selecting conjugate field gives a nonzero magnetization. A symmetric mixture can instead have zero mean but a nondecaying two-point contribution. The connected correlation function and correlation length describing ordinary critical fluctuations should be evaluated in a chosen pure phase when this distinction matters.