On properties of Parisi measures (Q2343032)

The famous Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model involves a pure spin Hamiltonian, whereas the present paper is interested in mixed spin Hamiltonians that are linear combinations of pure spin ones. The asymptotic behavior of the free energy associated with their Gibbs measure is obtained by minimizing the Parisi functional on the set of all probability measures on \([0,1]\). The minimizers are called Parisi measures and their uniqueness is proved in many cases. When there is no external field, the authors obtain interesting informations on these measures. First, their support contains the origin. Next, they are Dirac measures (replica symmetric) in some cases or may consist of two atoms (one replica symmetric breaking). They may also contain a continuous component on some interval (full replica symmetric breaking). Moreover, in the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model, slightly above the critical temperature, the largest number in the support of a Parisi measure is a jump discontinuity. Spherical mixed spin models are also discussed.