The boundary effects of transverse field Ising model

Abstract: Advance in quantum simulations using trapped ions or superconducting elements allows detailed analysis of the transverse field Ising model (TFIM), which can exhibit a quantum phase transition and has been a paradigm in exactly solvable quantum systems. The Jordan-Wigner transformation maps the one-dimensional TFIM to a fermion model, but additional complications arise in finite systems and introduce a fermion-number parity constraint when periodic boundary condition (PBC) is imposed. By constructing the free energy and spin correlations with the fermion-number parity constraint and comparing the results to the TFIM with open boundary condition, we show that the boundary effects can become significant for the anti-ferromagnetic TFIM with odd number of sites at low temperature.