Uniqueness, Spatial Mixing, and Approximation for Ferromagnetic 2-Spin Systems

Abstract: We give fully polynomial-time approximation schemes (FPTAS) for the partition function of ferromagnetic 2-spin systems in certain parameter regimes. The threshold we obtain is almost tight up to an integrality gap. Our technique is based on the correlation decay framework. The main technical contribution is a new potential function, with which we establish a new kind of spatial mixing.