On the Potts model partition function in an external field (Q2428520)

The paper addresses the partition function of the Potts model on a graph in an external magnetic field. The focus is on its connections with (in fact, expansion with respect to) the zero-field Potts model partition function. Technically, the major analytic tools come from a connection between the Potts model and the graph theory, particularly with the graph polynomials. The zero-field model is linked with the Tutte polynomial. However, in the presence of external fields, the pertinent partition function cannot be written as an evaluation of the Tutte polynomial. To overcome this difficulty, an extension of the concept of the contraction of an edge of a vertex-weighted graph was introduced, together with an extension of the Tutte polynomial named the V-polynomial. Actually, the partition function of the Potts model with an external field can be shown to be an evaluation of the V-polynomial. The related combinatiorial machinery is used in the present paper to obtain a number of new expansions for the partition function, including the spanning tree and forest expansions. This is an extension of the well known spanning tree expansion for the zero-field partition function to the case with external fields. The results are specialized to several common types of Hamiltonians from the physics literature.