Nature Communications (Jan 2021)

Uncomputability of phase diagrams

  • Johannes Bausch,
  • Toby S. Cubitt,
  • James D. Watson

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20504-6
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 1
pp. 1 – 8

Abstract

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Phase diagrams describe how a system changes phenomenologically as an external parameter, such as a magnetic field strength, is varied. Here, the authors prove that in general such a phase diagram is uncomputable, by explicitly constructing a one-parameter Hamiltonian for which this is the case.