Medium-range interactions and crossover to classical critical behavior

Abstract

We study the crossover from Ising-like to classical critical behavior as a function of the range R of interactions. The power-law dependence on R of several critical amplitudes is calculated from renormalization theory. The results confirm the predictions of Mon and Binder, which were obtained from phenomenological scaling arguments. In addition, we calculate the range dependence of several corrections to scaling. We have tested the results in Monte Carlo simulations of two-dimensional systems with an extended range of interaction. An efficient Monte Carlo algorithm enabled us to carry out simulations for sufficiently large values of R, so that the theoretical predictions could actually be observed.