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# Binding of Similarly Charged Plates: A Global Analysis

## Abstract

Similarly and highly charged plates in the presence of multivalent counter ions attract each other, leading to electrostatically bound states. Using Monte-Carlo simulations we obtain the inter-plate pressure in the global parameter space. The equilibrium plate separation, where the pressure changes from attractive to repulsive, exhibits a novel unbinding transition. A systematic and asymptotically exact strong-coupling field-theory yields the bound state from a competition between counter-ion entropy and electrostatic attraction, in agreement with simple scaling arguments.

Experimentally, it has been known for a long time that highly charged planar surfaces attract each other in the presence of multivalent counter ions, inducing bound states. This electrostatic binding restricts the swelling of calcium clay particles and leads to much reduced water uptake of charged lamellar membrane systems. Attractive forces between charged surfaces have also been observed with the surface force apparatus. Monte-Carlo simulations indeed confirmed that for a given surface charge density there exists a threshold counter-ion valence above which attraction can be observed over some range of plate separations.

Theoretically, these observations came as a surprise, since the mean-field or Poisson-Boltzmann (PB) theory, which works usually quite well for charged systems, predicts only repulsive forces between charged objects. This contradiction between observation and PB prediction resulted in an immense theoretical activity, which aimed at understanding the simple model of two uniformly and similarly charged planar surfaces interacting across a gap of width $`d`$ filled with point-like counter ions. Clearly, reality is much more complicated due to additional interactions, but even this simple model, which we will consider in the following, is quite challenging. A number of approaches were proposed which incorporate counter-ion correlations that are neglected within PB. The first were integral-equation theories, perturbative expansions around the PB theory, and local density-functional theory, which compare well with simulation results and exhibit attraction. If the two plates are far apart from each other, the counter-ion clouds can be viewed as condensed on the plates, and the resulting simplified model can be solved within a Gaussian or harmonic-plasmon approximation. These approaches either involve numerics and do not provide much physical insight, or they are valid for large separations and cannot be used to characterize the bound state.

Of great significance is the fact that when the electrostatic force is attractive, the equilibrium distance $`d^{}`$ between the plates is smaller than the typical lateral distance $`a`$ between counter ions (as we will demonstrate later on), thus rendering a quasi-two-dimensional layer of counter ions. In the first part of this paper, we will use this fact and present a scaling argument for the attraction between two plates, valid for $`da`$. We will then demonstrate that this scaling analysis is equivalent to the leading order of a systematic field-theory, valid in the strong-coupling (SC) limit (corresponding to large plate-charge density $`\sigma `$ or large counter-ion valence $`q`$), where it agrees with extensive Monte-Carlo (MC) simulations. Our MC results span the complete parameter space. Whenever attractive forces between the plates exist, they induce a bound equilibrium state, which exhibits a novel unbinding transition.

The simple scaling argument for attraction between charged plates starts with partitioning the system into isolated counterions sandwiched between two finite plate segments of area $`A=q/2\sigma `$. Neglecting ion-ion interactions should be valid for $`d\sqrt{A}`$. Denoting the distance between the counterion and the plates as $`x`$ and $`dx`$, respectively, we obtain for the electrostatic interaction energies, in units of $`k_BT`$ and for $`d\sqrt{A}`$, the results $`W_1=2\pi \mathrm{}_Bq\sigma x`$ and $`W_2=2\pi \mathrm{}_Bq\sigma (dx)`$, respectively, as follows from the potential at an infinite charged wall and omitting constant terms. The sum of the two interactions is $`W_{1+2}=W_1+W_2=2\pi \mathrm{}_Bq\sigma d`$ which shows that i) no pressure is acting on the counterion since the forces exerted by the two plates exactly cancel and ii) that the counterion mediates an effective attraction between the two plates. The interaction between the two plates is proportional to the total charge on one plate, $`A\sigma `$, and for $`d\sqrt{A}`$ given by $`W_{12}=2\pi A\mathrm{}_B\sigma ^2d`$. Since the system is electroneutral, $`q=2A\sigma `$, the total energy is $`W=W_{12}+W_1+W_2=2\pi A\mathrm{}_B\sigma ^2d`$, leading to an electrostatic pressure $`P_{el}=(W/A)/d=2\pi \mathrm{}_B\sigma ^2`$. The two plates attract each other. The entropic pressure due to counter-ion confinement is $`P_{en}=1/Ad=2\sigma /qd`$. The equilibrium plate separation is characterized by zero total pressure, $`P_{tot}=P_{el}+P_{en}=0`$, leading to an equilibrium plate separation $`d^{}=1/\pi \mathrm{}_Bq\sigma `$. By construction, the derivation for $`d^{}`$ is valid only for $`d^{}<a`$ (where $`a`$ is the average lateral distance between ions as defined by $`\pi a^2=q/2\sigma `$), equivalent to the condition $`\mathrm{\Xi }=2\pi \mathrm{}_B^2\sigma q^3>4`$, i.e. for large values of the coupling constant $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$. Surprisingly, these results for $`P_{tot}`$ and $`d^{}`$ become exact in the SC limit $`\mathrm{\Xi }\mathrm{}`$, as we will demonstrate in the following. In fact, the attraction between charged plates, as derived here for $`da`$, is conceptually simpler than the PB result of repulsion, because the latter case involves many-body effects.

To proceed with our systematic field theory, consider the partition function for $`N`$ counter ions confined between two parallel plates at distance $`d`$

$$𝒵_N=\frac{1}{N!}\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}d𝐫_j\theta (z_j)\theta (dz_j)\mathrm{e}^{}$$
(1)
where the Heavyside function is defined by $`\theta (z)=1`$ for $`z>0`$ and zero otherwise. Introducing the counter-ion density operator $`\widehat{\rho }(𝐫)=_{j=1}^N\delta (𝐫𝐫_j)`$ the Hamiltonian can be written as

$$=\frac{\mathrm{}_B}{2}d𝐫d𝐫^{}[q\widehat{\rho }(𝐫)\sigma \delta (z)\sigma \delta (dz)]v(𝐫𝐫^{})[q\widehat{\rho }(𝐫^{})\sigma \delta (z^{})\sigma \delta (dz^{})]d𝐫\widehat{\rho }(𝐫)h(𝐫)$$
(2)
where $`v(𝐫)=1/r`$ is the Coulomb interaction and the field $`h`$ has been added to calculate density distributions later on. The characteristic length scales are the Bjerrum length $`\mathrm{}_B=e^2/4\pi \epsilon k_BT`$ and the Gouy-Chapman length $`\mu =1/2\pi \mathrm{}_Bq\sigma `$, which measure the distance at which the interaction between two unit charges and between a counter ion and a charged wall reach thermal energy, respectively. Rescaling all lengths by the Gouy-Chapman length according to $`𝐫=\mu \stackrel{~}{𝐫}`$ and $`d=\mu \stackrel{~}{d}`$, the Hamiltonian becomes

$$=\frac{1}{8\pi ^2\mathrm{\Xi }}d\stackrel{~}{𝐫}d\stackrel{~}{𝐫}^{}[2\pi \mathrm{\Xi }\widehat{\rho }(\stackrel{~}{𝐫})\delta (\stackrel{~}{z})\delta (\stackrel{~}{d}\stackrel{~}{z})]v(\stackrel{~}{𝐫}\stackrel{~}{𝐫}^{})[2\pi \mathrm{\Xi }\widehat{\rho }(\stackrel{~}{𝐫}^{})\delta (\stackrel{~}{z}^{})\delta (\stackrel{~}{d}\stackrel{~}{z}^{})]d\stackrel{~}{𝐫}\widehat{\rho }(\stackrel{~}{𝐫})h(\stackrel{~}{𝐫})$$
(3)
and thus only depends on the coupling parameter $`\mathrm{\Xi }=2\pi q^3\mathrm{}_B^2\sigma `$. At this point we employ a Hubbard-Stratonovitch transformation, similar to previous implementations of a field theory for charged systems, followed by a Legendre transformation to the grand-canonical ensemble, $`𝒬=_N\lambda ^N𝒵_N`$, introducing the fugacity $`\lambda `$. The inverse Coulomb operator follows from Poisson’s law as $`v^1(𝐫)=^2\delta (𝐫)/4\pi `$, which leads to

$$𝒬=\frac{𝒟\varphi }{𝒵_v}\mathrm{exp}\left\{\frac{1}{8\pi \mathrm{\Xi }}d\stackrel{~}{𝐫}\left[[\varphi (\stackrel{~}{𝐫})]^24ı\delta (\stackrel{~}{z})\varphi (\stackrel{~}{𝐫})4ı\delta (\stackrel{~}{d}\stackrel{~}{z})\varphi (\stackrel{~}{𝐫})4\mathrm{\Lambda }\theta (\stackrel{~}{z})\theta (\stackrel{~}{d}\stackrel{~}{z})\mathrm{e}^{h(\stackrel{~}{𝐫})ı\varphi (\stackrel{~}{𝐫})}\right]\right\}$$
(4)
where we introduced the notation $`𝒵_v=\sqrt{detv}`$ and the rescaled fugacity $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is defined by $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=2\pi \lambda \mu ^3\mathrm{\Xi }=\lambda /(2\pi \sigma ^2\mathrm{}_B)`$. The expectation value of the counter-ion density, $`\rho (\stackrel{~}{𝐫})`$, follows by taking a functional derivative with respect to the generating field $`h`$, $`\rho (\stackrel{~}{𝐫})=\delta \mathrm{ln}𝒬/\delta h(\stackrel{~}{𝐫})\mu ^3`$, giving rise to

$$\stackrel{~}{\rho }(\stackrel{~}{𝐫})=\frac{\rho (\stackrel{~}{𝐫})}{2\pi \mathrm{}_B\sigma ^2}=\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{e}^{ı\varphi (\stackrel{~}{z})}.$$
(5)
The normalization condition for the counter-ion distribution, $`\mu d\stackrel{~}{z}\rho (\stackrel{~}{z})=2\sigma /q`$, which follows directly from the definition of the grand-canonical partition function, leads to

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }_0^{\stackrel{~}{d}}d\stackrel{~}{z}\mathrm{e}^{ı\varphi (\stackrel{~}{z})}=2.$$
(6)
This is an important equation since it shows that the expectation value of the fugacity term in Eq.(4) is bounded and of the order of unity. Let us first repeat the saddle-point analysis, which, because of the structure of the action in Eq.(4), should be valid for $`\mathrm{\Xi }1`$. The saddle-point equation reads $`^2\varphi (\stackrel{~}{z})/\stackrel{~}{z}^2=2ı\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{e}^{ı\varphi (\stackrel{~}{z})}`$. The solution of this differential equation is $`ı\varphi (\stackrel{~}{z})=2\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{cos}\left(\mathrm{\Lambda }^{1/2}[\stackrel{~}{z}\stackrel{~}{d}/2]\right)`$. The normalization condition leads to the equation $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{1/2}\mathrm{tan}[\stackrel{~}{d}\mathrm{\Lambda }^{1/2}/2]=1`$, which is solved by $`\mathrm{\Lambda }2/\stackrel{~}{d}`$ for $`\stackrel{~}{d}1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }\pi ^2/4\stackrel{~}{d}^2`$ for $`\stackrel{~}{d}1`$. From Eq.(5), the rescaled density distribution of counter ions is given by the well-known PB result

$$\stackrel{~}{\rho }(\stackrel{~}{z})=1/\mathrm{cos}^2\left(\mathrm{\Lambda }^{1/2}[\stackrel{~}{z}\stackrel{~}{d}/2]\right).$$
(7)
Let us now consider the opposite limit, when the coupling constant $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$ is large. In this case, the saddle-point approximation breaks down, since the prefactor in front of the action in Eq.(4) becomes small. Since the fugacity term is bounded, as evidenced by Eq.(6), one can expand the partition function (and also all expectation values) in powers of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }/\mathrm{\Xi }`$ (which is equivalent to a virial expansion). For the expectation value determining the density Eq.(5) the leading two orders in the virial expansion are

$`\mathrm{e}^{ı\varphi (\stackrel{~}{z})}=\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{\Xi }v(0)/2}+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{\Xi }v(0)}}{2\pi \mathrm{\Xi }}}{\displaystyle d𝐫\left(\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{\Xi }v(𝐫\stackrel{~}{𝐫})}1\right)}.`$

The normalization condition Eq.(6) can then be solved by an expansion of the fugacity in inverse powers of the coupling constant, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=\mathrm{\Lambda }_0+\mathrm{\Lambda }_1/\mathrm{\Xi }+\mathrm{}`$. We obtain $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_0=2\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{\Xi }v(0)/2}/\stackrel{~}{d}`$ and thus the density distribution is (in agreement with our scaling analysis) to leading order indeed a constant given by

$$\stackrel{~}{\rho }(\stackrel{~}{z})=2/\stackrel{~}{d}+𝒪(\mathrm{\Xi }^1)$$
(8)
In Fig.1a we show counter-ion density profiles obtained using MC simulations  for small coupling parameter $`\mathrm{\Xi }=0.5`$ for various plate distances, which are well described by the PB profiles Eq.(7) shown as solid lines. Fig.1b shows that for $`\mathrm{\Xi }=100`$ PB (thin solid lines) is inadequate. As suggested by our scaling analysis, the asymptotic SC result Eq.(8) should be valid for $`d/a=\stackrel{~}{d}/\mathrm{\Xi }^{1/2}<1`$ only, since otherwise ion-ion interactions become important. For $`\stackrel{~}{d}=3/2`$ (open diamonds) we find $`d/a=0.15`$, and indeed Eq.(8) is accurate. For $`\stackrel{~}{d}=10`$ (open stars) we find $`d/a=1`$, the density profile is neither described by Eq.(8) nor (7). Finally, for $`\stackrel{~}{d}=30`$ (open stars) we find $`d/a=3`$, the two layers are decoupled and the density profile is described by a double exponential $`\stackrel{~}{\rho }(\stackrel{~}{z})=(\mathrm{e}^{\stackrel{~}{z}}+\mathrm{e}^{\stackrel{~}{z}\stackrel{~}{d}})/(1\mathrm{e}^{\stackrel{~}{d}})`$ (dashed-dotted line), which is the superposition of the density profiles of two isolated charged surfaces in the SC limit. The crossover from PB to SC is demonstrated in Fig.2, where we plot density profiles for fixed plate separation $`\stackrel{~}{d}=2`$ for various coupling parameters $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$.

Using the contact value theorem, the pressure $`P`$ between the two plates, which follows from the partition function via $`P=\mathrm{ln}𝒬_\lambda /A\mu \stackrel{~}{d}`$, is related to the counter ion density at a plate by

$$\stackrel{~}{P}=\frac{P}{2\pi \mathrm{}_B\sigma ^2}=\stackrel{~}{\rho }(\stackrel{~}{d})1.$$
(9)
The first term is the entropic pressure due to counter-ion confinement, the second term is due to electrostatic interactions between the counterions and the charged plates. Numerically, the contact ion density $`\stackrel{~}{\rho }(\stackrel{~}{d})`$ is obtained from the density profiles by extrapolation. In Fig.3 we show numerical pressure data for various values of $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$. Attraction (negative pressure) is obtained for $`\mathrm{\Xi }>10`$. The numerical pressure for $`\mathrm{\Xi }=0.5`$ (open diamonds) agrees well with the PB prediction (solid line), which from Eqs.(9) and (7) is given by $`\stackrel{~}{P}=\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ determined by $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{1/2}\mathrm{tan}[\stackrel{~}{d}\mathrm{\Lambda }^{1/2}/2]=1`$. The small distance range of most data, and the complete pressure data for $`\mathrm{\Xi }=10^5`$ (open triangles) are well described by the SC prediction (broken line). It results from combining Eqs.(9) and (8) and is given by $`\stackrel{~}{P}=2/\stackrel{~}{d}1`$, from which the equilibrium separation, which corresponds to the minimum of the effective plate-plate interaction, is obtained as $`\stackrel{~}{d}^{}=2`$. Incidentally, this is exactly the scaling prediction for the pressure derived in the beginning of this paper.

Finally, combining all pressure data, we obtain the global phase diagram shown in Fig.4, featuring two regions where the inter-plate pressure is attractive and repulsive. The dividing line between those regions, which corresponds to the equilibrium plate separation $`\stackrel{~}{d}^{}`$ in the bound state, is determined over 4 decades of the coupling constant $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$. In the limit of large coupling constants, the phase boundary saturates at $`\stackrel{~}{d}^{}=2`$, in agreement with our scaling argument and the leading result of our SC theory. The threshold coupling constant to observe attraction between charged plates is $`\mathrm{\Xi }^{}10`$. As $`\mathrm{\Xi }\mathrm{\Xi }^{}`$ from above, the equilibrium plate separation diverges continuously to infinity. This constitutes a novel unbinding transition, which experimentally could be observed with charged lamellar or clay systems by raising the temperature.

The plate separation equals the lateral ion-distance on a line in Fig.4 determined by $`d/a=\stackrel{~}{d}/\mathrm{\Xi }^{1/2}=1`$, which crosses the equilibrium-separation line at $`\stackrel{~}{d}3`$. For the most part of the equilibrium-separation line in Fig.4 the counter-ion distribution is therefore indeed two-dimensional, and many-ion effects can be neglected except very close to $`\mathrm{\Xi }^{}`$. Correlations between counter ions, except the lateral exclusion correlation which keeps ions apart, are therefore mostly unimportant in the bound state. This explains why the simple single-ion scaling argument advanced in the beginning, which turns out to be exact in the limit $`\mathrm{\Xi }\mathrm{}`$, works so well. More detailed comparison between MC and next-leading terms of our SC theory, which are equivalent to higher-order virial terms, together with a detailed discussion of the significance of Wigner crystallization (which occurs at $`\mathrm{\Xi }15600`$ in the limit $`\stackrel{~}{d}0`$) will be published shortly.


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# Dynamical effects on galaxies in clusters

## 1. Evidence for a hierarchical universe?

A hierarchical universe with a low matter density is the currently favoured model for structure formation. However, observational evidence for evolution is scarce - structures appear old and similar over moderate look back times (Peebles 1999). Galaxy clusters are the most massive virialised objects in the universe and are the latest systems to form, therefore they may reveal evidence for recent evolution. Indeed, perhaps the strongest indication for evolution can be found by examining galaxy morphologies in rich clusters over the past 5 Gyrs (i.e. references within: Sandage et al. 1970 Butcher & Oemler 1978, Dressler 1980, Dressler & Gunn 1983, Couch et al. 1987, Binggeli et al. 1988, Ferguson & Sandage 1991, Binggeli et al. 1991, Thompson & Gregory 1993, Peterson & Caldwell 1993, Lavery & Henry 1994, Barger et al. 1996, Dressler et al. 1997, Balogh et al. 1998, Couch et al. 1998, Poggianti et al. 1999, Bower et al. 1999). At $`z0.5`$ we see that clusters of galaxies contain predominantly late type disk galaxies that have undergone a transformation into dwarf ellipticals (dSph) by the present day. There is also compelling evidence that the fraction of S0 galaxies decreases over the same look back time (Dressler et al. 1997), whilst at even earlier epochs, tentative evidence for the hierarchical growth of the cluster elliptical galaxies may be found (van Dokkum et al. 1999).

The data suggest that the cluster environment is causing a morphological transformation between galaxy types. Other indicators of environmental influences in clusters include the morphology-density relation (Dressler 1980), signatures of star-bursts followed by a rapid truncation of star-formation in cluster spirals and k+a/a+k galaxies (Poggianti et al. 1999), the absence of low surface brightness disks in clusters (Bothun et al. 1993) and the presence of a large component of diffuse star-light (Bernstein et al. 1993, Freeman - this volume). In this paper we will discuss the role of environment and the proposed mechanisms that are responsible for driving galactic evolution in clusters and creating the “morphological and spectroscopic Butcher-Oemler effects”.

## 2. Mergers, Winds, Harassment & Stripping

Several mechanisms have been proposed that can induce a morphological transformation between galaxy classes. Toomre & Toomre’s (1972) pioneering n-body simulations of merging spirals gave rise to elliptical remnants. This process is most effective when the encounter velocity is comparable to the galaxies internal velocity, therefore mergers should be rare within rich virialised systems, a fact pointed out by many authors (e.g. Mamon - this volume), however see van Dokkum (1999). Numerical simulations of clusters that formed naturally in a hierarchical universe show that mergers are indeed rare (Ghigna et al. 1998). Galactic winds from supernovae are frequently cited as important mechanisms for dwarf galaxy evolution (Dekel & Silk 1986) yet observational evidence for this process is not compelling (Martin 1998) and it is unlikely that feedback can reshape the stellar configuration.

We therefore focus on the two mechanisms that are most likely to operate extensively in the cluster environment (c.f. Fujita 1999). Impulsive heating via rapid tidal encounters has been demonstrated to be an efficient mechanism at heating disk galaxies in clusters – termed “galaxy harassment” by Moore et al. (1996, 1998), tidal forces and internal cluster dynamics have been studied by many authors, including Richstone & Malmuth 1983, Icke 1985, Merritt 1985, Byrd & Valtonen 1990, Valluri & Jog 1991, Valluri 1993, Gnedin (1999). Gunn & Gott (1978) suggested that the ram-pressure force of the hot intra-cluster medium could remove the atomic hydrogen from disks infalling into clusters. Nulsen (1982) proposed that the viscous and turbulent stripping of gas would be equally as effective.

Morphological transformation by gravitational encounters is a process that requires several strong or frequent tidal collisions and acts over a timescale of several $`\times 10^9`$ years. In contrast, hydrodynamic effects operate on a much shorter timescale, $`10^7`$ years. Observational evidence for gas-dynamical interactions in clusters is scarce due to the speed at which the process occurs (Stevens et al. 1999), however the literature does contain some examples (i.e. Warmels 1988, Cayatte et al. 1990, Gavazzi et al. 1995, Kenny & Koopman 1999, and several recent studies in this volume by Vollmer et al. (1999), Ryder et al. (1997) & J. Solanes et al. ).

The first 3-dimensional calculation of ram pressure stripping using realistic disk galaxy models was carried out by Abadi et al. (1999). Earlier work had studied the properties of spherical systems in two dimensions (i.e. Balsara et al. 1994). Abadi et al. found that the simple analytic argument proposed by Gunn & Gott (1972) balancing the ram pressure, $`\rho _{_{ICM}}v^2`$, with the disk’s gravitational restoring force works very well. Simulations at $`45^{}`$ and edge on to the motion through the intra-cluster medium suffered slightly less stripping than face on. However, even in the best case scenario for stripping, an $`L_{}`$ disk galaxy moving through the center of the Coma cluster at 3000 km s-1, a significant fraction of gas remained (HI extending to a radius $`5`$ kpc) that would continue to form stars.

Figure 1 The time evolution of the diffuse HI component within a spiral galaxy falling into the Coma cluster (Quilis et al. 1999).

A more realistic treatment of the stripping process using a Eulerian finite difference code revealed that the turbulent and viscous stripping processes help to remove more gas than just the ram pressure alone (Quilis et al. 1999). Quilis et al. also realised that disks are not smooth homogeneous mediums, but have a complex structure containing many holes and regions that are completely devoid of gas (Brinks & Bajaja 1986). Once these are included, the ICM streams through the holes, preventing “backside infall” and ablates away the gas from their edges, rapidly removing the entire HI content of disks. Thus, these authors find that the stripping process alone, is in general 100% efficient at removing the HI component within a timescale $`<10^7`$ years (see Figure 1).

Without fresh material to replenish GMC’s, star formation will be rapidly truncated (Elmgreen & Efremov 1997). Continued heating by tidal encounters with massive galaxies increases the disk scale height by factors of 2–3. Spiral features will be suppressed and these galaxies will resemble the S0 galaxies observed in nearby clusters. The efficiency of the stripping process increases rapidly towards the cluster center where $`\rho _{_{ICM}}`$ and $`v`$ are maximum, thus we have a natural way of creating the morphology-density relation. Whether or not the transformation of Sa/Sb galaxies to S0’s can reproduce the same scaling as observed remains to be tested.

Galaxy harassment will transform dI/Sc/Sd disks into dwarf elliptical (dSph) galaxies over a timescale of several billion years - i.e. several cluster orbital periods. Simulations of this process appear to produce remnant galaxies that closely match the observed cluster dwarf’s (Moore et al. 1996, 1998), although the sample of kinematical data is small. A fundamental prediction of the formation of dE (dSph) galaxies by tidal heating is that the remnant galaxies are embedded in diffuse streams of stars, tidally removed from the progenitor disks (see Figure 2). The surface brightness profiles of these galaxies are expected to be well fitted by an exponential profile over their central regions but a significant excess of stars will be found at 4–5 scale lengths (Moore et al. 1999). The surface brightness of this excess will occur fainter than $`2728M__B`$ per arcsec-2, an observable effect with 4m or 8m class telescopes. The presence of freely orbiting planetary nebulae in clusters (Freeman, this meeting) provides strong support for the efficiency of this process.

Not surprisingly, low surface brightness disks are not found within clusters (Bothun et al. 1993). The shear extent of their stellar distributions and low central potentials make them unstable to tidal forces. Once these galaxies enter the cluster environment, most of there stars are tidally removed and a diffuse spheroidal remnant remains (Moore et al. 1999). Numerical simulations of this process can be used to study the diffuse cluster light component.

Figure 2 An example of tidal tails from the galaxy harassment process from the cluster CL0054-27 at z=0.56 courtesy of Ian Smail. The image is roughly 150 kpc on a side. Features this prominent are rare at this surface brightness ($`27M__B`$ per arcsec-2) but are expected to surround all cluster dE (dSph) galaxies at lower surface brightness levels.

## 3. Conclusions

Two mechanisms are necessary to reproduce the observed morphological evolution of galaxies in clusters. At the faint end of the luminosity function, disk galaxies are easily transformed into dE (dSph) galaxies by galaxy harassment. Numerical simulations of this process predict that all dwarf galaxies in nearby clusters will be embedded within very diffuse streams of stripped stars. Low surface brightness disks with slowly rising rotation curves and shallow central potentials will not survive the fluctuating potentials of rich clusters and will be tidally shredded to form the bulk of the diffuse intra-cluster light. Spirals with bulges are more stable to gravitational encounters. They would retain their stars and gas and continue to form stars to the present day. Most, if not all of the atomic hydrogen of these galaxies must be rapidly removed upon entering the cluster environment in order to explain their star-formation histories. Fluid dynamic simulations of realistic disks moving through a hot ICM demonstrates that a combination of ram-pressure and viscous stripping can remove 100% of the HI from the IGM within $`10^7`$ years. Continued tidal heating by encounters will complete a transformation to the S0 class.

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text:
# The Luminosity Function of 80 Abell Clusters from the CRoNaRio catalogues

## 1. Introduction

The galaxy luminosity function measures the relative frequency of galaxies as a function of luminosity. Cluster LF’s can be determined as the statistical excess of galaxies along the line of sight of the clusters with respect to control field directions due to the fact that clusters appear as overdensities with respect to the field. This approach assumes that the contribution of the fore-background galaxies along the line of sight of the clusters is equal to an “average” value. An hypotesis that is rather weak since very often nearby groups, clusters or superclusters happen to lay in same the direction and therefore affect the determination of the LF.

This problem is even more relevant when sampling the cluster outskirts due to: i) the low galaxy density of these regions is strongly affected even by small contaminations; ii) the large observing area which makes more probable the presence of contaminating structures. These outer regions are very relevant due to the fact that they are the putative places for galaxy evolution to occur (van Dokkum et al. 1998).

Non zero correlation function makes therefore very time consuming the accurate determination of LF’s using traditional CCD imagers (due to their small field of view) and therefore leads most authors to use comparison average field counts taken from the literature. These average counts are usually obtained from regions of the sky completely unrelated to the cluster’s position. Alternative routes are either to observe small comparison fields or to recognise individual cluster membership either on spectroscopic or morphological grounds.

Wide field (hereafter WF) imagers such as Schmidt plates or large format CCD’s are the ideal tools to perform accurate determinations of LF’s for statistically significant samples of clusters. In this paper we present results from a long term project aimed to derive LF’s for a large sample of Abell clusters selected accordingly to the criteria described below.

The work is done in the framework of the CRoNaRio collaboration aimed to produce the first complete catalogue of all object visible on the Digitised Palomar Sky Survey (hereafter DPOSS).

## 2. The CRoNaRio Project and the cluster sample

The CRoNaRio Project is a joint enterprise among Caltech and the astronomical observatories of Roma, Napoli and Rio de Jainero, aimed to produce the first general catalogue of all objects visible on the DPOSS. The final Palomar-Norris North Sky Catalogue will include astrometric, photometric (in the three Gunn-Thuan bands $`g`$, $`r`$ and $`i`$) and rough morphological information for an estimated number of $`2\times 10^9`$ stars and $`5\times 10^7`$ galaxies (Djorgovsky et al.1999).

Our final goal is to derive individual cluster LF’s and therefore a statistically robust cumulative LF for all Abell (1958) clusters fulfilling the following criteria: the cluster must fall in a plate triplet with available individual photometric zero points, it must not be close to the edges of a plate and it must have at least one reliable spectroscopic redshift estimate. Moreover clusters must not present anomalous structures such as double density peaks, discordant redshift determinations etc.

In what follows we discuss the results for a subsample of 80 clusters, an extension of Paolillo et al.(2000).

## 3. Individual LF determination

In order to compute the cluster LF the first step is to subtract the fore-background contamination. The method, together with the errors involved in the subtraction process, is detailed in Paolillo et al. (1999) and in Paolillo et al. (2000).

Field counts are measured around each cluster, thanks to the wide field coverage of DPOSS plates, after removing density peaks.

A “local field”, measured all around the studied clusters, is the adopted estimate of the background counts in the cluster direction. It is a better measure of the contribution of background galaxies to counts in the cluster direction than the usual “average” field, since it allows to correct for the presence of possible underlying large-scale structures both at the cluster distance and in front or behind it.

In Figure 1 we show the background counts measured all around the studied clusters (solid dots). We agree fairly well with the measurements by Weir et al. (1995) who also used DPOSS data but were marginally higher since we include in the background counts also galaxies belonging to the supercluster in which the studied clusters are embedded in.

Once we have searched for the central $`1.5\sigma `$ density peak in the central region (cf. Paolillo et al. 2000) we then derive the cluster LF by subtracting from the galaxy counts the local field counts, rescaled to the effective cluster area. This approach allows to take into account the cluster morphology without having to adopt a fixed cluster radius, and thus to apply the local field correction to the region where the signal (cluster) to noise (field and cluster fluctuations) ratio is higher, in order to minimize statistical uncertainties.

## 4. Results

We combine individual LF’s of many clusters to obtain a composite LF for all clusters in our sample. We adopted the method in Garilli et al. 1999. In practice, the composite LF is obtained by weighting each cluster against the relative number of galaxies in an opportunely chosen magnitude range (thus taking into account the different degree of completeness). The final LF for a first sample of 80 clusters is shown in Figure 2.

The fit of the LF’s to a Schechter (1976) function gives the values: $`\alpha =1.04_{0.07}^{+0.09}`$; -1.01$`{}_{0.07}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.09}`$; -0.99$`{}_{0.11}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.12}`$ and $`M^{}=21.99_{0.17}^{+0.13}`$; -22.02$`\pm `$0.16; -22.30$`\pm `$0.20 mag, respectively in $`g`$, $`r`$ and $`i`$ where $`M^{}`$ is the characteristic knee magnitude and $`\alpha `$ is the slope of the LF at faint magnitudes. Figure 2 also shows the three best-fit functions together with the $`68\%`$ and $`90\%`$ confidence levels.

We compared our LF with that found by Garilli (1999) and collaborators and believe that this comparison is particularly significant since i) they derived their LF from a largely overlapping set of clusters and in exactly the same photometric system; ii) they used a completely different criterium for removing interlopers (color changes due to K correction terms). The comparison is shown in figure 3.

In Figure 3 we compare also our LF with that obtained by Trentham (1998). At magnitude between -22 and -17 the two LF’s are in good agreement. We cannot say much about the sharp rise of the LF found by Trentham at magnitudes fainter than $`M_g=18`$, since our data reach the dwarf range only in the last magnitude bins. On the bright end side of the LF we find instead a strong difference which may be explained as a result of the fact that Trentham is understimating the contribution of bright galaxies to the LF.

The relatively large number of clusters used in the present study allowed us to investigate the dependence of the LF on the cluster richness parameter. We find (cf. Figure 4) that with a statistical significance of $`3\sigma `$, rich (R$`>`$1) clusters have shallower faint end than poor (R$`1`$) ones. This confirm what suggested by Driver, Couch, & Phillips (1988) that poor clusters host a larger fraction of dwarfs.

## References

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Driver, S. P., Couch, W. J., & Phillipps, S. 1998, MNRAS, 301, 369

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Paolillo, M., Andreon, S., Longo, G., Puddu, E., Piranomonte, S., Scaramella, R., Testa, V., De Carvalho, R., Djorgovski, G., Gal, R., 1999 in the proceeding of the XLIII SAIt national conference Mem. Soc. Astr. It.

Paolillo, M., Andreon, S., Longo, G., Puddu, E., Gal, R. R., Scaramella, R., Djorgovski, S. G., 2000, A&Asubmitted

Schechter, P. 1976, ApJ, 203, 297

Trentham, N. 1998, MNRAS, 294, 193

van Dokkum, P., Franx, M., Kelson, D.D., Illingworth, G.D., Fisher, D., Fabricant, D. 1998, ApJ, 500, 714

Weir, N., Fayyad, U.M., Djorgovski, S.G., Roden, J., 1995c, PASP 107, 1243


text:
# Critical behavior of ferromagnetic spin models with aperiodic exchange interactions

## Abstract

We review recent investigations of the critical behavior of ferromagnetic $`q`$-state Potts models on a class of hierarchical lattices, with exchange interactions according to some deterministic but aperiodic substitution rules. The problem is formulated in terms of exact recursion relations on a suitable parameter space. The analysis of the fixed points of these equations leads to a criterion to gauge the relevance of the aperiodic geometric fluctuations. For irrelevant fluctuations, the critical behavior remains unchanged with respect to the underlying uniform models. In the presence of relevant fluctuations, a non-trivial symmetric fixed point, associated with the critical behavior of the uniform model, becomes fully unstable, and there appears a two-cycle of the recursion relations. A scaling analysis, supported by direct numerical thermodynamical calculations, shows the existence of a novel critical universality class associated with relevant geometric fluctuations.

The discovery of quasicrystals, and the design and investigation of magnetic superlattices, provided strong motivation for the analysis of spin models with aperiodic exchange interactions. Along the lines of the Harris  criterion to gauge the influence of quenched disorder on the critical behavior of simple ferromagnetic systems, Luck  has proposed that sufficiently strong geometric fluctuations, associated with deterministic but aperiodic interactions, may also change the ferromagnetic critical behavior of the underlying uniform models. Luck’s heuristic criterion has indeed been checked and confirmed in a number of cases (including the quantum Ising chain , and the two-dimensional Ising model ).

In a series of recent publications , we considered ferromagnetic Ising and Potts models, with aperiodic exchange interactions according to a variety of two-letter substitution rules, on hierarchical Migdal-Kadanoff lattices . Taking advantage of the lattice structure, we were able to derive an exact expression for Luck’s criterion, and to analyze the novel critical behavior in the presence of relevant geometrical fluctuations. We now present an overview of these calculations.

As an example, consider the period-doubling two-letter substitution rule,

$$AAB,$$
(1)
$$BAA,$$
(2)
so that the successive application of this inflation rule on letter $`A`$ produces the sequence

$$AABABAAABAAABAB\mathrm{}.$$
(3)
At each stage of this construction, the numbers $`N_A`$ and $`N_B`$, of letters $`A`$ and $`B`$, can be obtained from the recursion relations

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}N_A^{}\\ N_B^{}\end{array}\right)=𝐌\left(\begin{array}{c}N_A\\ N_B\end{array}\right),$$
(4)
with the substitution matrix

$$𝐌=\left(\begin{array}{cc}1& 2\\ 1& 0\end{array}\right).$$
(5)
The eigenvalues of this matrix, $`\lambda _1=2`$, which is the period of the transformation, and $`\lambda _2=1`$, govern most of the geometrical properties of the sequence. The total number of letters, at a large order $`n`$ of these constructions, behaves asymptotically as $`\lambda _1^n`$. The geometric fluctuations are of the order $`\left|\lambda _2\right|^n`$. It is then convenient to define the wandering exponent of the sequence,

$$\omega =\frac{\mathrm{ln}\left|\lambda _2\right|}{\mathrm{ln}\lambda _1},$$
(6)
that expresses the asymptotic dependence of the fluctuations with the total number of letters, $`\mathrm{\Delta }NN^\omega `$.

The period-doubling sequence can be used to construct aperiodic spin models on hierarchical diamond-type lattices with $`b=\lambda _1=2`$ bonds and $`m`$ branches. To go beyond the simple Ising model, and introduce an extra parameter to work with, we consider a $`q`$-state ferromagnetic Potts model, given by the Hamiltonian

$$H=q\underset{(i,j)}{}J_{i,j}\delta _{\sigma _i,\sigma _j},$$
(7)
where $`\sigma _i=1,2,\mathrm{},q`$, at all sites of the hierarchical lattice, $`J_{i,j}>0`$, and the sum refers to nearest-neighbor pairs of sites (for $`q=2`$, we recover the Ising model). The couplings can take only two values, $`J_A`$ and $`J_B`$, associated with a sequence of letters produced by the period-doubling substitution. In Fig. 1, we indicate some stages of the construction of this model on a simple diamond lattice (with $`b=\lambda _1=2`$ bonds and $`m=2`$ branches). Note that the choice of the same interactions along the branches of the diamonds is indeed mimicking an aperiodic layered structure.

We may also consider more general substitution rules and basic “diamonds” with $`m`$ branches and $`b`$ bonds along each branch, which leads to a lattice with the intrinsic or fractal dimension

$$D=\mathrm{ln}\left(mb\right)/\mathrm{ln}\left(b\right).$$
(8)
In each one of these structures, aperiodicity may be implemented by a substitution rule of the form

$$(A,B)(A^{n_1}B^{bn_1},A^{n_2}B^{bn_2}),$$
(9)
with $`0n_1,n_2b`$. These sequences are characterized by a substitution matrix with eigenvalues $`\lambda _1=b`$ and $`\lambda _2=n_2n_1`$, which leads to the wandering exponent

$$\omega =\frac{\mathrm{ln}\left|\lambda _2\right|}{\mathrm{ln}\lambda _1}=\frac{\mathrm{ln}\left|n_2n_1\right|}{\mathrm{ln}b}.$$
(10)
Now we decimate the internal degrees of freedom of the diamonds to write exact recursion relations for the reduced couplings. For the $`q`$-state Potts model on a lattice with $`b=2`$ bonds per branch, and with interactions according to the period-doubling rule, given by Eqs. (1) and (2), it is easy to write

$$x_A^{}=\left(\frac{x_Ax_B+q1}{x_A+x_B+q2}\right)^m,$$
(11)
and

$$x_B^{}=\left(\frac{x_A^2+q1}{2x_A+q2}\right)^m,$$
(12)
where $`x_{A,B}=\mathrm{exp}\left(q\beta J_{A,B}\right)`$, with $`\beta =1/k_BT`$.

In parameter space, besides the trivial fixed points associated with zero and infinite temperatures, there is a non-trivial symmetric fixed point, that governs the critical behavior of the underlying uniform model (see the sketch drawn in Fig. 2). The linearization of the recursion relations about this symmetric fixed point leads to the matrix form

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{\Delta }x_A^{}\\ \mathrm{\Delta }x_B^{}\end{array}\right)=C\left(q\right)𝐌^T\left(\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{\Delta }x_A\\ \mathrm{\Delta }x_B\end{array}\right),$$
(13)
where $`C\left(q\right)`$ is a $`q`$-dependent structure factor, and $`𝐌^T`$ is the transpose of the substitution matrix. The eigenvalues of this linear form may be written as

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }_1=C\left(q\right)\lambda _1=C\left(q\right)b,$$
(14)
and

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }_2=C\left(q\right)\lambda _2=C\left(q\right)\lambda _1^\omega =C\left(q\right)b^\omega ,$$
(15)
where we have used the definition of $`\omega `$, given by Eq. (6). For irrelevant geometric fluctuations, in which case the critical behavior remains unchanged with respect to the underlying uniform model, it is required that $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_1>1`$, and $`\left|\mathrm{\Lambda }_2\right|<1`$ (see Fig. 2a). Therefore, we can write

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }_1=C\left(q\right)b=b^{y_T},$$
(16)
with the usual thermal critical exponent associated with the uniform system,

$$y_T=\frac{D}{2\alpha _u},$$
(17)
where $`D`$, given by Eq. (8), is the fractal dimension of the lattice, and $`\alpha _u`$ is the critical exponent associated with the divergence of the specific heat of the uniform model . From Eqs. (16) and (17), we have the structure factor

$$C\left(q\right)=b^{\frac{D}{2\alpha _u}1}.$$
(18)
Inserting this expression into Eq. (15) for the second eigenvalue, we have

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }_2=b^{\frac{D}{2\alpha _u}1+\omega },$$
(19)
which leads to an analog of Luck’s criterion for a hierarchical lattice. As we have already mentioned, fluctuations are irrelevant for $`\left|\mathrm{\Lambda }_2\right|<1`$. However, if $`\left|\mathrm{\Lambda }_2\right|>1`$, which corresponds to a fully unstable symmetric fixed point, geometric fluctuations are relevant (see Fig. 2b). Therefore, the critical behavior departs from the uniform case if we have

$$\left|\mathrm{\Lambda }_2\right|>1\omega >1\frac{D}{2\alpha _u},$$
(20)
which is an exact criterion of relevance for the Migdal-Kadanoff hierarchical lattices. For the Potts model on the simple diamond lattice, with $`b=2`$ bonds and $`m=2`$ branches, this criterion can be written as

$$q>q_c=4+2\sqrt{2}=6.828427\mathrm{},$$
(21)
where $`q_c`$ is the same critical value for the relevance of quenched disorder according to a calculation by Derrida and Gardner  in the weak disorder limit (also, note that $`\alpha _u>0`$ for a uniform Potts model on a simple diamond lattice with $`q>q_c`$).

The recursion relations are so simple that it turns out to be relatively easy to carry out an analysis of the critical behavior under relevant geometric fluctuations. It is not difficult to show that, for $`q>q_c`$, in which case the non-trivial symmetric fixed point is fully unstable, there is a two-cycle that seems to be the candidate to define a novel class of critical behavior . In terms of the second iterates of the recursion relations, of which each point of this two-cycle is a fixed point, it displays a saddle-point character, with stable and unstable manifolds. Let us use standard scaling arguments to analyze the novel critical behavior. In the thermodynamic limit, the reduced free energy per bond can be written in the scaling form

$$f\left(x\right)=g\left(x\right)+\frac{1}{b^{2D}}f\left(x^{\prime \prime }\right),$$
(22)
where $`g\left(x\right)`$ is a regular function, $`x^{\prime \prime }`$ is a second iterate of the recursion relations, $`b`$ is the rescaling factor (number of bonds of the diamond hierarchical lattice), $`D`$ is the fractal dimension, and we use the factor $`b^{2D}`$ because we need two iterates to go back to the neighborhood of the initial point in parameter space. This equation has the asymptotic solution

$$f\left(x\right)\left|xx^{}\right|^{2\alpha }P\left(\frac{\mathrm{ln}\left|xx^{}\right|}{\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{cyc}}\right),$$
(23)
where $`x^{}`$ is one of the points of the two-cycle, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{cyc}`$ is the largest eigenvalue of the linearization of the second iterate of the recursion relations about any one of the points of the cycle, $`P\left(z\right)`$ is an arbitrary function of period $`1`$, and the critical exponent $`\alpha `$, associated with the specific heat, is given by

$$\alpha =22\frac{\mathrm{ln}b^D}{\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{cyc}}=22\frac{\mathrm{ln}\left(mb\right)}{\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{cyc}}.$$

All the calculations that we have performed, for a $`q`$-state Potts model on a variety of Migdal-Kadanoff hierarchical lattices, with different values of $`b`$ and $`m`$, and suitable substitution sequences, point out that the values of $`\alpha `$ from this scaling analysis are unequivocally different from the values of $`\alpha _u`$ for the corresponding underlying uniform models . For example, for the period-doubling rule and the simple diamond lattice ($`b=m=2`$), with $`q=7`$, the two-cycle is located at $`(x_A,x_B)_1=\left(5.285\mathrm{}\text{}7.642\mathrm{}\right)`$, and $`(x_A,x_B)_2=\left(6.697\mathrm{}\text{}4.750\mathrm{}\right)`$, with eigenvalues of the second iterate $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_1=3.933\mathrm{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_2=0.985\mathrm{}`$, from which we have $`\alpha =0.0022\mathrm{}`$, which should be compared with $`\alpha _u=0.010\mathrm{}`$. With $`q=25`$, the weakening of the second-order transition is even clearer: the two-cycle is located at $`(x_A,x_B)_1=\left(6.942\mathrm{}\text{}234.34\mathrm{}\right)`$, and $`(x_A,x_B)_2=\left(39.023\mathrm{}\text{}3.831\mathrm{}\right)`$, with eigenvalues of the second iterate $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_1=4.243\mathrm{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_2=0.343\mathrm{}`$, from which we have $`\alpha =0.0817\mathrm{}`$, to be compared with $`\alpha _u=0.404\mathrm{}`$.

To test the validity of the scaling arguments, and the role of the two-cycle as the responsible for the new critical behavior, we have performed direct numerical analyses of the singularity of the free energy . In these problems, it is well known that the reduced free energy can be expressed as an infinite series . For the Potts model on the $`b=2`$ diamond-type lattice, with the period-doubling rule, we have the series

$$f(x_A,x_B)=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{1}{\left(2m\right)^n}\left[\frac{1}{3}\mathrm{ln}\left(x_A^{\left(n\right)}+x_B^{\left(n\right)}+q2\right)+\frac{1}{6}\mathrm{ln}\left(2x_A^{\left(n\right)}+q2\right)\right],$$
(24)
where $`x_{A,B}^{\left(n\right)}`$ indicate the $`n`$th iterate of the recursion relations. As usual, we assume uniform convergence, and differentiate term by term to obtain the specific heat per bond. The critical temperature can be determined with high precision by making use of the existence of the paramagnetic fixed point at $`T=0`$, corresponding to $`x_{A,B}=\mathrm{}`$, which causes the apparent divergence of the series if summed without using any regularization trick. Fixing the parameters $`q`$ and $`m`$, and also the strengths of $`J_A`$ and $`J_B`$, the critical temperature thus calculated in fact locates $`x_{A,B}`$ in the attraction basin of the two-cycle. According to the expectations, for irrelevant geometric fluctuations, or for the uniform model, this method yields a critical temperature that locates the system in the stable manifold of the uniform fixed point.

The singularity in the specific heat can be analyzed by fitting the numerical thermodynamic data to a function of the form $`A+B\left|\left(TT_c\right)/T_c\right|^\alpha `$ over a somewhat arbitrary scaling region. For the irrelevant and uniform cases, we have always obtained very good fittings, in excellent agreement with the values of $`\alpha _u`$ predicted by the scaling theory around the uniform fixed point. Of course, these fitted values did not present any detectable sensitivity on the particular values of $`J_A`$ and $`J_B`$. The Ising model ($`q=2`$) on the simple $`b=m=2`$ diamond lattice, with exchange interactions according to the period-doubling sequence, had been previously and independently analyzed by Andrade , with the same conclusions. For larger values of $`q`$, in which cases the scaling analysis predicts positive values of $`\alpha `$ (although, of course, smaller than the values of $`\alpha _u`$), the fittings presented excellent agreement with the scaling predictions. For weaker singularities (mainly negative values of $`\alpha `$), the fitted values were always somewhat bigger than the scaling predictions, with better agreement for increasing values of $`q`$. For $`b=m=2`$, and $`q=7`$, we obtained $`\alpha =0.005(4)`$, to be compared with the scaling result $`\alpha =0.0022\mathrm{}`$; for $`q=25`$, we obtained $`\alpha =0.08(2)`$, to be compared with $`\alpha =0.0817\mathrm{}`$. From the numerical calculations, we have seen an oscillatory behavior of the specific heat as a function of $`T`$. The period of oscillation is roughly given by the argument in Eq. (23), with better agreement for increasing values of $`q`$. These log-periodic oscillations, which are well known phenomena associated with hierarchical structures, and indicate the need of a more refined scaling analysis, have also been detected in the calculations of Andrade .

In conclusion, we have shown the existence of an exact criterion to gauge the relevance of geometric fluctuations in a class of spin systems on Migdal-Kadanoff hierarchical lattices. For irrelevant fluctuations, the critical behavior remains unchanged with respect to the underlying uniform models. In the presence of relevant fluctuations, the non-trivial symmetric fixed point, which is associated with the critical behavior of the uniform model, becomes fully unstable, and there appears a two-cycle of the recursion relations in parameter space. A standard scaling analysis, supported by direct thermodynamical calculations, shows the existence of a novel universality class associated with the relevant geometric fluctuations.

This work has been supported by the Brazilian agencies FAPESP, CAPES, and CNPq.