Statistical mechanics of the flexural Ising model in $D$ dimensions

Abstract

A generalization of the compressible Ising model in which spins are hosted on an elastic $D$-dimensional lattice embedded in $d>D$ dimensions is studied. Two critical systems interact when temperature is tuned to the Ising transition point, as a freely-fluctuating thermalized crystalline membrane in its flat phase is already critical. Noting that the upper critical dimension of both the membrane and Ising model is $D_{uc}=4$, renormalization group recursion relations are found by expanding in $\epsilon=4-D$. The coupling between spin and elastic degrees of freedom is shown to be a relevant operator for the physical case of a two-dimensional membrane fluctuating in three-dimensional space ($D=2$, $d=3$), which suggests that the thermalized membrane and Ising systems become more strongly coupled at long wavelengths. The coupling is irrelevant when the difference between the space dimension and membrane dimension is greater than twelve.