Computer Simulation of Continuous Phase Transitions

Abstract

We consider the nature of the near-critical region in systems exhibiting a second order phase transition. Attention is focused on the universal scaling behaviour that occurs near the critical point. The origins of this behaviour are traced to the large length scale properties of the underlying configurational patterns. It is argued that computer simulation can be used to directly probe the nature of this configurational structure eg. via measurements of the order parameter distribution function. When combined with the application of finite-size scaling techniques, this permits accurate estimates of critical point parameters and sensitive tests of universality.