Free Energy as a Dynamical Invariant (or Can You Hear the Shape of a Potential?)

Classical lattice spin systems provide an important and illuminating family of models in statistical physics. An interaction on a lattice L ⊂ Z determines a lattice spin system with potential A . The pressure P(A ) and free energy FA (β) = −(1/β)P (βA ) are fundamental characteristics of the system. However, even for the simplest lattice spin systems, the information about the potential that the free energy captures is subtle and poorly understood. We study whether, or to what extent, (microscopic) potentials are determined by their (macroscopic) free energy. In particular, we show that for a one-dimensional lattice spin system, the free energy of finite range interactions typically determines the potential, up to natural equivalence, and there is always at most a finite ambiguity; we exhibit exceptional potentials where uniqueness fails; and we establish deformation rigidity for the free energy. The proofs use a combination of thermodynamic formalism, algebraic geometry, and matrix algebra. In the language of dynamical systems, we study whether a Hölder continuous potential for a subshift of finite type is naturally determined by its periodic orbit invariants: orbit spectra (Birkhoff sums over periodic orbits with various types of labeling), beta function (essentially the free energy), or zeta function. These rigidity problems have striking analogies to fascinating questions in spectral geometry that Kac adroitly summarized with the question “Can you hear the shape of a drum?”.