First-order phase transitions: equivalence between bimodalities and the Yang-Lee theorem

First-order phase transitions in finite systems can be defined through the bimodality of the distribution of the order parameter. This definition is equivalent to the one based on the inverted curvature of the thermodynamic potential. Moreover we show that it is in a one-to-one correspondence with the Yang-Lee theorem in the thermodynamic limit. Bimodality is a necessary and sufficient condition for zeroes of the partition sum in the control intensive variable complex plane to be distributed on a line perpendicular to the real axis with a uniform density, scaling like the number of particles. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.