On concavity of TAP free energy in the SK model

Abstract

We analyse the Hessian of the Thouless-Anderson-Palmer (TAP) free energy for the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model, below the de Almeida-Thouless line, evaluated in Bolthausen's approximate solutions of the TAP equations. We show that while its empirical spectrum weakly converges to a measure with negative support, positive outlier eigenvalues occur for some $(\beta,h)$ below the AT line. In this sense, TAP free energy may lose concavity in the order parameter of the theory, i.e. the random spin-magnetisations, even below the AT line. Possible interpretations of these findings within Plefka's expansion of the Gibbs potential are not definitive and include the following: i) either higher order terms shall not be neglected even if Plefka's first convergence criterion (yielding, in infinite volume, the AT line) is satisfied, ii) Plefka's first convergence criterion (hence the AT line) is necessary yet hardly sufficient, or iii) Bolthausen's magnetizations do not approximate the TAP solutions sufficiently well up to the AT line.Comment: 29 pages, 1 figur