Effect of random impurities on fluctuation-driven first-order transitions

Collective dynamics of dividing chemotactic cells

The large scale behavior of a population of cells that grow and interact through the concentration field of the chemicals they secrete is studied using dynamical renormalization group methods. The combination of the effective long-range chemotactic interaction and lack of number conservation leads to a rich variety of phase behavior in the system, which includes a sharp transition from a phase that has moderate (or controlled) growth and regulated chemical interactions to a phase with strong (or uncontrolled) growth and no chemical interactions. The transition point has nontrivial critical exponents. Our results might help shed light on the interplay between chemical signaling and growth in tissues and colonies, and in particular on the challenging problem of cancer metastasis.

Bond disorder induced criticality of the three-color Ashkin-Teller model

An intriguing result of statistical mechanics is that a first-order phase transition can be rounded by disorder coupled to energylike variables. In fact, even more intriguing is that the rounding may manifest itself as a critical point, quantum or classical. In general, it is not known, however, what universality classes, if any, such criticalities belong to. In order to shed light on this question we examine in detail the disordered three-color Ashkin-Teller model by Monte Carlo methods. Extensive analyses indicate that the critical exponents define a new universality class. We show that the rounding of the first-order transition of the pure model due to the impurities is manifested as criticality. However, the magnetization critical exponent, β, and the correlation length critical exponent, ν, are found to vary with disorder and the four-spin coupling strength, and we conclusively rule out that the model belongs to the universality class of the two-dimensional Ising model.

Critical behavior of the pure and random-bond two-dimensional triangular Ising ferromagnet

We investigate the effects of quenched bond randomness on the critical properties of the two-dimensional ferromagnetic Ising model embedded in a triangular lattice. The system is studied in both the pure and disordered versions by the same efficient two-stage Wang-Landau method. In the first part of our study, we present the finite-size scaling behavior of the pure model, for which we calculate the critical amplitude of the specific heat's logarithmic expansion. For the disordered system, the numerical data and the relevant detailed finite-size scaling analysis along the lines of the two well-known scenarios-logarithmic corrections versus weak universality--strongly support the field-theoretically predicted scenario of logarithmic corrections. A particular interest is paid to the sample-to-sample fluctuations of the random model and their scaling behavior that are used as a successful alternative approach to criticality.

Rounding by disorder of first-order quantum phase transitions: emergence of quantum critical points

We give a heuristic argument for disorder rounding of a first-order quantum phase transition into a continuous phase transition. From both weak and strong disorder analysis of the N-color quantum Ashkin-Teller model in one spatial dimension, we find that, for N > or =3, the first-order transition is rounded to a continuous transition and the physical picture is the same as the random transverse field Ising model for a limited parameter regime. The results are strikingly different from the corresponding classical problem in two dimensions where the fate of the renormalization group flows is a fixed point corresponding to N-decoupled pure Ising models.

Nematic-isotropic transition with quenched disorder

Nematic elastomers do not show the discontinuous, first-order, phase transition that the Landau-De Gennes mean field theory predicts for a quadrupolar ordering in three dimensions. We attribute this behavior to the presence of network crosslinks, which act as sources of quenched orientational disorder. We show that the addition of weak random anisotropy results in a singular renormalization of the Landau-De Gennes expression, adding an energy term proportional to the inverse quartic power of order parameter Q. This reduces the first-order discontinuity in Q. For sufficiently high disorder strength the jump disappears altogether and the phase transition becomes continuous, in some ways resembling the supercritical transitions in external field.

Excess free energy and Casimir forces in systems with long-range interactions of van der Waals type: general considerations and exact spherical-model results

We consider systems confined to a d-dimensional slab of macroscopic lateral extension and finite thickness L that undergo a continuous bulk phase transition in the limit L --> infinity and are describable by an O(n) symmetrical Hamiltonian. Periodic boundary conditions are applied across the slab. We study the effects of long-range pair interactions whose potential decays as bx-(d+sigma) as x --> infinity, with 2<sigma<4 and 2<d+sigma< or =6, on the Casimir effect at and near the bulk critical temperature Tc,infinity, for 2<d<4. These interactions decay sufficiently fast to leave bulk critical exponents and other universal bulk quantities unchanged--i.e., they are irrelevant in the renormalization group (RG) sense. Yet they entail important modifications of the standard scaling behavior of the excess free energy and the Casimir force Fc. We generalize the phenomenological scaling Ansätze for these quantities by incorporating these long-range interactions. For the scaled reduced Casimir force per unit cross-sectional area, we obtain the form LdFc/kBt approximately Xi0(L/xi infinity) + g omegaL -omega Xi omega (L/Xi infinity) + g sigma L -omega sigma Xi sigma (L/Xi infinity). Here Xi0, Xi omega, and Xi sigma are universal scaling functions; g omega and g sigma are scaling fields associated with the leading corrections to scaling and those of the long-range interaction, respectively; omega and omega sigma = sigma + eta - 2 are the associated correction-to-scaling exponents, where eta denotes the standard bulk correlation exponent of the system without long-range interactions; xi infinity is the (second-moment) bulk correlation length (which itself involves corrections to scaling). The contribution proportional variant g sigma decays for T not = Tc,infinity algebraically in L rather than exponentially, and hence becomes dominant in an appropriate regime of temperatures and L. We derive exact results for spherical and Gaussian models which confirm these findings. In the case d + sigma = 6, which includes that of nonretarded van der Waals interactions in d = 3 dimensions, the power laws of the corrections to scaling proportional to b of the spherical model are found to get modified by logarithms. Using general RG ideas, we show that these logarithmic singularities originate from the degeneracy omega = omega sigma = 4 - d that occurs for the spherical model when d + sigma = 6, in conjunction with the b dependence of g omega.

Critical behavior of the two-dimensional random-bond Potts model: a short-time dynamic approach

The short-time critical dynamics of the two-dimensional eight-state random-bond Potts model is investigated with large-scale Monte Carlo simulations. Dynamic relaxation starting from a disordered and an ordered state is carefully analyzed. The continuous phase transition induced by disorder is studied, and both the dynamic and static critical exponents are estimated. The static exponent beta/nu shows little dependence on the disorder amplitude r, while the dynamic exponent z and static exponent 1/nu vary with the strength of disorder.

Short-time dynamics and magnetic critical behavior of the two-dimensional random-bond potts model

The critical behavior in the short-time dynamics for the random-bond Potts ferromagnet in two dimensions is investigated by short-time dynamic Monte Carlo simulations. The numerical calculations show that this dynamic approach can be applied efficiently to study the scaling characteristic, which is used to estimate the critical exponents straight theta,beta/nu, and z, for quenched disordered systems from the power-law behavior of the kth moments of magnetization.

Magnetic critical behavior of two-dimensional random-bond Potts ferromagnets in confined geometries

We present a numerical study of two-dimensional random-bond Potts ferromagnets. The model is studied both below and above the critical value Qc=4, which discriminates between second- and first-order transitions in the pure system. Two geometries are considered, namely cylinders and square-shaped systems, and the critical behavior is investigated through conformal invariance techniques that were recently shown to be valid, even in the randomness-induced second-order phase transition regime Q>4. In the cylinder geometry, connectivity transfer matrix calculations provide a simple test to find the range of disorder amplitudes that is characteristic of the disordered fixed point. The scaling dimensions then follow from the exponential decay of correlations along the strip. Monte Carlo simulations of spin systems on the other hand are generally performed on systems of rectangular shape on the square lattice, but the data are then perturbed by strong surface effects. The conformal mapping of a semi-infinite system inside a square enables us to take into account boundary effects explicitly and leads to an accurate determination of the scaling dimensions. The techniques are applied to different values of Q in the range 3-64.