Modulated phases in Ising systems with long-range antiferromagnetic and short-range ferromagnetic interactions

Abstract

We consider large spin systems with short-range ferromagnetic interactions and long-range antiferromagnetic interactions subjected to periodic boundary conditions which have been proved by Giuliani, Lebowitz and Lieb to have minimizers that tend to alternate groups of $1$ and $-1$ of the same length $h^\star$. We consider states with energy of the same order as that of minimizers and show that they consist of a finite number of modulated phases of the same form as minimizers with some interfacial defects. The analysis is carried out using the notation of Gamma-convergence by exhibiting an interfacial energy that describes the minimal defect energy between different modulated phases.