Transfer-matrix method

In statistical mechanics, the transfer-matrix method is a mathematical technique which is used to write the partition function into a simpler form. It was introduced in 1941 by Hans Kramers and Gregory Wannier. In many one dimensional lattice models, the partition function is first written as an n-fold summation over each possible microstate, and also contains an additional summation of each component's contribution to the energy of the system within each microstate.