Two-cycles in spin systems: multi-state Ising-type ferromagnets

Hamiltonians for general multi-state spin-glass systems with Ising symmetry are derived for both sequential and synchronous updating of the spins. The possibly different behaviour caused by the way of updating is studied in detail for the (anti)-ferromagnetic version of the models, which can be solved analytically without any approximation, both thermodynamically via a free-energy calculation and dynamically using the generating functional approach. Phase diagrams are discussed and the appearance of two-cycles in the case of synchronous updating is examined. A comparative study is made for the Q-Ising and the Blume-Emery-Griffiths ferromagnets and some interesting physical differences are found. Numerical simulations confirm the results obtained.