Percolation approach to phase transitions (Q5935155)

The formalism, which maps thermal phase transitions into a percolation problem is reviewed. In particular it is shown that the Ising model is mapped onto a percolation problem where clusters are made of parallel spins connected by bonds. At low temperature the system is characterized by an infinite cluster and a distribution of finite clusters, while at very high temperature there is only a distribution of finite clusters without the infinite cluster. At an intermediate temperature \(T_c\) corresponding to the critical Ising temperature, the cluster distribution is characterized by a power law without any cutoff, the power law being related to the Ising critical exponents.