Critical points inside the gaps of ground state laminations for some models in statistical mechanics (Q2465215)

The authors study the behavior near the zero temperature of some standard models is statistical mechanics. They consider a discrete set \(\Lambda\) occupied by particles whose state is described by a real variable. The state of the whole system is described by a configuration consisting of assigning a real variable to each site, i.e. a configuration is a function \(u:\Lambda \to \mathbb{R}\). It is assumed that the particles at different sites are interacting between neighbors of finite range and the interactions are symmetric under the action of a group \(G\), including symmetries of the set \(\Lambda\). The goal is to consider rather general \(\Lambda\), which include the standard lattices \(\Lambda=\mathbb{Z}^d\) as well as Bethe lattice and other models. In the previous article \textit{R. de la Llave} and \textit{E. Valdinoci}, Ground states and critical points for Aubry-Mather theory in statistical mechanics. Preprint MP-ARC (2006)] it was shown that there are many ground states that satisfy an order property called self-conforming or Birkhoff. Under some slightly stronger assumptions all ground states satisfy this order property. Several motivations of the order property are given from solid state physics, dynamical systems and variational methods. Since these ground states and their translations do not have crossing, the authors treat this situation as a lamination borrowing from topology. In the particular case that the set \(\Lambda\) is a one-dimensional lattice and the interaction is just nearest neighbor the obtained results establish Mather's criterion for the existence of invariant circles in twist mappings in terms of the vanishing of the Peierls-Nabarro barrier.