Fisher's scaling relation above the upper critical dimension

¹ Applied Mathematics Research Centre, Coventry University - Coventry, CV1 5FB, England, UK, EU
² Statistical Physics Group, Institut Jean Lamour, UMR CNRS 7198, Université de Lorraine B.P. 70239, 54506 Vandœuvre lès Nancy Cedex, France, EU

Received: 14 December 2012
Accepted: 16 January 2014

Abstract

Fisher's fluctuation-response relation is one of four famous scaling formulae and is consistent with a vanishing correlation-function anomalous dimension above the upper critical dimension d_c. However, it has long been known that numerical simulations deliver a negative value for the anomalous dimension there. Here, the apparent discrepancy is attributed to a distinction between the system-length and correlation- or characteristic-length scales. On the latter scale, the anomalous dimension indeed vanishes above d_c and Fisher's relation holds in its standard form. However, on the scale of the system length, the anomalous dimension is negative and Fisher's relation requires modification. Similar investigations at the upper critical dimension, where dangerous irrelevant variables become marginal, lead to an analogous pair of Fisher relations for logarithmic-correction exponents. Implications of a similar distinction between length scales in percolation theory above d_c and for the Ginzburg criterion are briefly discussed.