Analysis of Critical Points in a Permutation Model on Hierarchical Lattices by Real-Space Renormalization Group

The permutation model is a classical spin system where elements of the symmetric group interact with one another. The partition function of this model is directly related to the entanglement structure of random quantum circuits and random tensor networks. In these contexts, the entanglement entropy undergoes a transition between area-law and volume-law scaling, depending on the model parameters. This transition point has attracted considerable attention. In the present work, we investigate the ferromagnetic-paramagnetic phase transition of the permutation model, which corresponds to the entanglement entropy transition. Using exact real-space renormalization group calculations on self-dual hierarchical lattices, we numerically determine finite-replica critical points for [Formula: see text]. We compare the results with the duality prediction based on the Fourier transform of the symmetric group and then extrapolate the b = 3 data toward the replica limit mn → 0, where the effective dimension is two. The comparison supports the duality-based estimate while also clarifying the systematic uncertainty associated with the extrapolation formula.