CRITICAL-BEHAVIOR OF THE 3-DIMENSIONAL GONIHEDRIC ISING-MODEL

We use the cluster variation method (CVM) and Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the phase structure of the 3d gonihedric Ising actions defined by Savvidy and Wegner. This model corresponds to the usual thr ee-dimensional cubic Ising model with nearest, next to the nearest, an d plaquette interactions in the region with degenerate lamellar ground states. The picture of the phase diagram given by the CVM is in good agreement with the results of Monte Carlo simulations, and it is shown that the gonihedric model is in the same universality class of the or dinary three-dimensional Ising model.