The Strength of First and Second Order Phase Transitions from Partition Function Zeroes

Abstract

We present a numerical technique employing the density of partition function zeroes (i) to distinguish between phase transitions of first and higher order, (ii) to examine the crossover between such phase transitions and (iii) to measure the strength of first and second order phase transitions in the form of latent heat and critical exponents. These techniques are demonstrated in applications to a number of models for which zeroes are available.