Landau free energy of small clusters beyond mean-field approach

Abstract

Landau free energy determines the landscape of order parameter fluctuations that occur in a physical system at thermal equilibrium and, in particular, characterizes the critical phenomena. We propose a semianalytical approach based on the fluctuating local field method, which allows us to estimate Landau free energy for small clusters with discrete (Ising model) and continuous (Heisenberg model) order parameter.