Monte Carlo calculation of free energy, critical point, and surface critical behavior of three-dimensional Heisenberg ferromagnets

A transfer-matrix Monte Carlo technique is developed to compute the free energy of three-dimensional, classical Heisenberg ferromagnets. From the free energy of systems with periodic and antiperiodic boundary conditions, helicity moduli are calculated. From these the critical couplings for simple-cubic (sc) and face-centered-cubic lattices are estimated by use of finite-size scaling. For the simple-cubic lattice, the critical dimension of the surface magnetization is estimated with standard Monte Carlo methods, yielding a result in excellent agreement with the -expansion work of Diehl and N\"usser.