On zero-free regions for the anti-ferromagnetic Potts model on bounded-degree graphs (Q824265)

Summary: For a graph \(G=(V,E), k\in\mathbb{N}\), and complex numbers \(w=(w_e)_{e\in E}\) the partition function of the multivariate Potts model is defined as \[ \mathbf{Z}(G;k,w):=\sum\limits_{\phi\colon V\to [k]} \prod\limits_{\substack{e=uv\in E \\ \phi(u)=\phi(v)}}w_e, \] where \([k]:=\{1,\ldots,k\}\). In this paper we give zero-free regions for the partition function of the anti-ferromagnetic Potts model on bounded degree graphs. In particular we show that for any \(\Delta\in\mathbb{N}\) and any \(k\geq e \Delta+1\), there exists an open set \(U\) in the complex plane that contains the interval \([0,1)\) such that \(\mathbf{Z}(G;k,w)\neq 0\) for any graph \(G=(V,E)\) of maximum degree at most \(\Delta\) and any \(w\in U^E\). (Here \(e\) denotes the base of the natural logarithm.) For small values of \(\Delta\) we are able to give better results. As an application of our results we obtain improved bounds on \(k\) for the existence of deterministic approximation algorithms for counting the number of proper \(k\)-colourings of graphs of small maximum degree.