Pathology of the Fermionic Representation of Transverse Ising Model

Abstract:

When studying the quantum Ising chain in a transverse field, we usually transform the spin operators to fermion operators by applying the Jordan-Wigner transformation,i.e.we take it for granted that the spin model and corresponding fermionic model are equivalent naively. But deliberate treatment could reveal that the equivalence accompanies some delicate conditions.Redundant degrees of freedom should be projected out carefully, especially for finite length of chain. In this paper, we compare the two models in detail so as to find the conditions of equivalence of them,including the interaction, the boundary conditions, and odevity of the number of lattice sites.We also exemplify in detail how to project out the redundant degrees of freedom for the fermionic representation.