A study of metastability in the Ising model

We consider a two-dimensional Ising ferromagnet with (+) boundary conditions and negative external field, where a Markovian time evolution is assumed. We construct, suitably restricting the allowed configurations att=0, a non equilibrium state with positive magnetization such that:

1. only one phase is present,
2. the relaxation time for unit volume is finite and can be made very large.

These results are obtained following a general method for describing metastable states proposed by Lebowitz and Penrose and exploiting the analysis of the Ising-spin-configurations in terms of contours given by Minlos and Sinai.