Ising Model: Local Spin Correlations and Conformal Invariance

We study the 2-dimensional Ising model at critical temperature on a simply connected subset of the square grid Z2. The scaling limit of the critical Ising model is conjectured to be described by Conformal Field Theory; in particular, there is expected to be a precise correspondence between local lattice fields of the Ising model and the local fields of Conformal Field Theory. Towards the proof of this correspondence, we analyze arbitrary spin pattern probabilities (probabilities of finite spin configurations occurring at the origin), explicitly obtain their infinite-volume limits, and prove their conformal covariance at the first (non-trivial) order. We formulate these probabilities in terms of discrete fermionic observables, enabling the study of their scaling limits. This generalizes results of Hongler (Conformal invariance of Ising model correlations. Ph.D. thesis, [Hon10]), Hongler and Smirnov (Acta Math 211(2):191-225, [HoSm13]), Chelkak, Hongler, and Izyurov (Ann. Math. 181(3), 1087-1138, [CHI15]) to one-point functions of any local spin correlations. We introduce a collection of tools which allow one to exactly and explicitly translate any spin pattern probability (and hence any lattice local field correlation) in terms of discrete complex analysis quantities. The proof requires working with multipoint lattice spinors with monodromy (including construction of explicit formulae in the full plane), and refined analysis near their source points to prove convergence to the appropriate continuous conformally covariant functions.