3-DIMENSIONAL 3-STATE POTTS-MODEL REVISITED WITH NEW TECHNIQUES

We report a fairly detailed finite-size scaling analysis of the first- order phase transition in the three-dimensional 3-state Potts model on cubic lattices with emphasis on recently introduced quantities whose infinite-volume extrapolations are governed only by exponentially smal l terms. In these quantities no asymptotic power series in the inverse volume are involved which complicate the finite-size scaling behaviou r of standard observables related to the specific-heat maxima or Binde r-parameter minima. Introduced initially for strong first-order phase transitions in q-state Potts models with ''large enough'' q, the new t echniques prove to be surprisingly accurate for a q value as small as 3. On the basis of the high-precision Monte Carlo data of Alves et al. [Phys. Rev. B 43 (1991) 5846], this leads to a refined estimate of be ta(t) = 0.550565(10) for the infinite-volume transition point. (C) 199 7 Elsevier Science B.V.