The replica-symmetric solution without replica trick for the Hopfield model (Q1897016)

The authors derive the replica-symmetry saddle-point equations for the Hopfield model without using the nonrigorous replica method. The solution of this system of equations give all the interesting properties of the Hopfield model including the critical capacity. The authors use a rigorous version of the cavity method different from the one used by G. Parisi et al. The hypothesis of the replica symmetry is substituted by the more understandable one of the self-averaging of the Edwards-Anderson order parameter. The same approach has been fruitfully applied by the second and third authors for a model which stores sequence of patterns [J. Phys. France 4, 629-633 (1994)]. \textit{H. English}, \textit{V. Mastropietro} and the third author applied a variant of this new rigorous approach to the model with input different from the output (the bidirectional associative model) [ibid. 5, 1-12 (1995)]. So this rigorous method is an alternative approach to the replica and can be applied to many generalizations of the associative memory models. The self-averaging property of the Edwards-Anderson parameter has been studied by using a perturbative expansion by the second and third authors. In [Helv. Phys. Acta 69, No. 5, 470 (1995)] they found that \(q\) is a self-averaging quantity at any order of the expansion of the parameter \(\alpha\) (the capacity of the system) and so that the replica symmetric saddle point equations and solutions hold at any order of this perturbative expansion.