Dynamics of droplet fluctuations in pure and random Ising systems

Stretched-exponential relaxation in weakly confined Brownian systems through large deviation theory

Stretched-exponential relaxation is a widely observed phenomenon found in ordered ferromagnets as well as glassy systems. One modeling approach connects this behavior to a droplet dynamics described by an effective Langevin equation for the droplet radius with an r^{2/3} potential. Here, we study a Brownian particle under the influence of a general confining, albeit weak, potential field that grows with distance as a sublinear power law. We find that for this memoryless model, observables display stretched-exponential relaxation. The probability density function of the system is studied using a rate-function ansatz. We obtain analytically the stretched-exponential exponent along with an anomalous power-law scaling of length with time. The rate function exhibits a point of nonanalyticity, indicating a dynamical phase transition. In particular, the rate function is double valued both to the left and right of this point, leading to four different rate functions, depending on the choice of initial conditions and symmetry.

Theory and experiments for disordered elastic manifolds, depinning, avalanches, and sandpiles

Domain walls in magnets, vortex lattices in superconductors, contact lines at depinning, and many other systems can be modeled as an elastic system subject to quenched disorder. The ensuing field theory possesses a well-controlled perturbative expansion around its upper critical dimension. Contrary to standard field theory, the renormalization group (RG) flow involves a function, the disorder correlator Δ(w), and is therefore termed the functional RG. Δ(w) is a physical observable, the auto-correlation function of the center of mass of the elastic manifold. In this review, we give a pedagogical introduction into its phenomenology and techniques. This allows us to treat both equilibrium (statics), and depinning (dynamics). Building on these techniques, avalanche observables are accessible: distributions of size, duration, and velocity, as well as the spatial and temporal shape. Various equivalences between disordered elastic manifolds, and sandpile models exist: an elastic string driven at a point and the Oslo model; disordered elastic manifolds and Manna sandpiles; charge density waves and Abelian sandpiles or loop-erased random walks. Each of the mappings between these systems requires specific techniques, which we develop, including modeling of discrete stochastic systems via coarse-grained stochastic equations of motion, super-symmetry techniques, and cellular automata. Stronger than quadratic nearest-neighbor interactions lead to directed percolation, and non-linear surface growth with additional Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) terms. On the other hand, KPZ without disorder can be mapped back to disordered elastic manifolds, either on the directed polymer for its steady state, or a single particle for its decay. Other topics covered are the relation between functional RG and replica symmetry breaking, and random-field magnets. Emphasis is given to numerical and experimental tests of the theory.

Size-stretched exponential relaxation in a model with arrested states

We study the effect of a rapid quench to zero temperature in a model with competing interactions, evolving through conserved spin dynamics. In a certain regime of model parameters, we find that the model belongs to the broader class of kinetically constrained models, however, the dynamics is different from that of a glass. The system shows stretched exponential relaxation with the unusual feature that the relaxation time diverges as a power of the system size. Explicitly, we find that the spatial correlation function decays as exp(-2r/sqrt[L]) as a function of spatial separation r in a system with L sites in the steady state, while the temporal autocorrelation function follows exp[-(t/τ_{L})^{1/2}], where t is the time and τ_{L} proportional to L. In the coarsening regime, after time t_{w}, there are two growing length scales, namely L(t_{w})∼t_{w}^{1/2} and R(t_{w})∼t_{w}^{1/4}; the spatial correlation function decays as exp[-r/R(t_{w})]. Interestingly, the stretched exponential form of the autocorrelation function of a single typical sample in the steady state differs markedly from that averaged over an ensemble of initial conditions resulting from different quenches; the latter shows a slow power-law decay at large times.

Aging in the three-dimensional random-field Ising model

We studied the nonequilibrium aging behavior of the random-field Ising model in three dimensions for various values of the disorder strength. This allowed us to investigate how the aging behavior changes across the ferromagnetic-paramagnetic phase transition. We investigated a large system size of N=256^{3} spins and up to 10^{8} Monte Carlo sweeps. To reach these necessary long simulation times, we employed an implementation running on Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors, reaching single-spin-flip times as short as 6 ps. We measured typical correlation functions in space and time to extract a growing length scale and corresponding exponents.

Language competition in a population of migrating agents

Influencing various aspects of human activity, migration is associated also with language formation. To examine the mutual interaction of these processes, we study a Naming Game with migrating agents. The dynamics of the model leads to formation of low-mobility clusters, which turns out to break the symmetry of the model: although the Naming Game remains symmetric, low-mobility languages are favored. High-mobility languages are gradually eliminated from the system, and the dynamics of language formation considerably slows down. Our model is too simple to explain in detail language competition of migrating human communities, but it certainly shows that languages of settlers are favored over nomadic ones.

Interplay of interfacial noise and curvature-driven dynamics in two dimensions

We explore the effect of interplay of interfacial noise and curvature-driven dynamics in a binary spin system. An appropriate model is the generalized two-dimensional voter model proposed earlier [M. J. de Oliveira, J. F. F. Mendes, and M. A. Santos, J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 26, 2317 (1993)JPHAC50305-447010.1088/0305-4470/26/10/006], where the flipping probability of a spin depends on the state of its neighbors and is given in terms of two parameters, x and y. x=0.5andy=1 correspond to the conventional voter model which is purely interfacial noise driven, while x=1 and y=1 correspond to the Ising model, where coarsening is fully curvature driven. The coarsening phenomena for 0.5<x<1 keeping y=1 is studied in detail. The dynamical behavior of the relevant quantities show characteristic differences from both x=0.5 and 1. The most remarkable result is the existence of two time scales for x≥x_{c} where x_{c}≈0.7. On the other hand, we have studied the exit probability which shows Ising-like behavior with a universal exponent for any value of x>0.5; the effect of x appears in altering the value of the parameter occurring in the scaling function only.

Relaxational processes in the one-dimensional Ising model with long-range interactions

Relaxational processes in ordered phases of one-dimensional Ising models with long-range interactions are investigated by Monte Carlo simulations. Three types of spin model, the pure ferromagnetic, the diluted ferromagnetic, and the spin glass models, are examined. The effective dimension of the one-dimensional systems are controlled by a parameter σ, which tunes the rate of interaction decay. Systematical investigations of droplet dynamics, from the lower to the upper critical dimension, are conducted by changing the value of σ. Comparing numerical data with the droplet theory, it is found that the surface dimension of droplets is distributed around the effective dimension. The distribution in the surface dimension makes the droplet dynamics complex and extremely enhances dynamical crossover.

Stretched exponentials and tensionless glass in the plaquette Ising model

Using Monte Carlo simulations, we show that the autocorrelation function C(t) in the d = 3 Ising model with a plaquette interaction has a stretched-exponential decay in a supercooled liquid phase. Such a decay characterizes also some ground-state probability distributions obtained from the numerically exact counting of up to 10(450) configurations. A related model with a strongly degenerate ground state but lacking glassy features does not exhibit such a decay. Although the stretched exponential decay of C(t) in the three-dimensional supercooled liquid is inconsistent with the droplet model, its modification that considers tensionless droplets might explain such a decay. An indication that tensionless droplets might play some role comes from the analysis of low-temperature domains that compose the glassy state. It shows that the energy of a domain of size l scales as l(1.15), hence these domains are indeed tensionless.

Nonaffine heterogeneities and droplet fluctuations in an equilibrium crystalline solid

We show, using molecular-dynamics simulations, that a two-dimensional Lennard-Jones solid exhibits droplet fluctuations characterized by nonaffine deviations from local crystallinity. The fraction of particles in these droplets increases as the mean density of the solid decreases and approaches ≈20% of the total number in the vicinity of the fluid-solid phase boundary. We monitor the geometry, local equation of state, density correlations, and Van Hove functions of these droplets. We provide evidence that these nonaffine heterogeneities should be interpreted as being droplet fluctuations from nearby metastable minima. The local excess pressure of the droplets plotted against the local number density shows a van der Waal loop with distinct branches corresponding to fluidlike compact and stringlike glassy droplets. The distinction between fluidlike and glassy droplets disappears above a well-defined temperature.

Multicritical points and crossover mediating the strong violation of universality: Wang-Landau determinations in the random-bond d=2 Blume-Capel model

The effects of bond randomness on the phase diagram and critical behavior of the square lattice ferromagnetic Blume-Capel model are discussed. The system is studied in both the pure and disordered versions by the same efficient two-stage Wang-Landau method for many values of the crystal field, restricted here in the second-order phase-transition regime of the pure model. For the random-bond version several disorder strengths are considered. We present phase diagram points of both pure and random versions and for a particular disorder strength we locate the emergence of the enhancement of ferromagnetic order observed in an earlier study in the ex-first-order regime. The critical properties of the pure model are contrasted and compared to those of the random model. Accepting, for the weak random version, the assumption of the double-logarithmic scenario for the specific heat we attempt to estimate the range of universality between the pure and random-bond models. The behavior of the strong disorder regime is also discussed and a rather complex and yet not fully understood behavior is observed. It is pointed out that this complexity is related to the ground-state structure of the random-bond version.

Constructing explicit magnetic analogies for the dynamics of glass forming liquids

By defining a spatially varying replica overlap parameter for a supercooled liquid referenced to an ensemble of fiducial liquid state configurations, we explicitly construct a constrained replica free energy functional that maps directly onto an Ising Hamiltonian with both random fields and random interactions whose statistics depend on the liquid structure. Renormalization group results for random magnets when combined with these statistics for the Lennard-Jones glass suggest that discontinuous replica symmetry breaking would occur if a liquid with short range interactions could be equilibrated at a sufficiently low temperature where its mean field configurational entropy would vanish, even though the system strictly retains a finite configurational entropy.

Strong violation of critical phenomena universality: Wang-Landau study of the two-dimensional Blume-Capel model under bond randomness

We study the pure and random-bond versions of the square lattice ferromagnetic Blume-Capel model, in both the first-order and second-order phase transition regimes of the pure model. Phase transition temperatures, thermal and magnetic critical exponents are determined for lattice sizes in the range L=20-100 via a sophisticated two-stage numerical strategy of entropic sampling in dominant energy subspaces, using mainly the Wang-Landau algorithm. The second-order phase transition, emerging under random bonds from the second-order regime of the pure model, has the same values of critical exponents as the two-dimensional Ising universality class, with the effect of the bond disorder on the specific heat being well described by double-logarithmic corrections, our findings thus supporting the marginal irrelevance of quenched bond randomness. On the other hand, the second-order transition, emerging under bond randomness from the first-order regime of the pure model, has a distinctive universality class with nu=1.30(6) and beta/nu = 0.128(5) . These results amount to a strong violation of universality principle of critical phenomena, since these two second-order transitions, with different sets of critical exponents, are between the same ferromagnetic and paramagnetic phases. Furthermore, the latter of these two sets of results supports an extensive but weak universality, since it has the same magnetic critical exponent (but a different thermal critical exponent) as a wide variety of two-dimensional systems with and without quenched disorder. In the conversion by bond randomness of the first-order transition of the pure system to second order, we detect, by introducing and evaluating connectivity spin densities, a microsegregation that also explains the increase we find in the phase transition temperature under bond randomness.

Superaging in two-dimensional random ferromagnets

We study the aging properties, in particular the two-time autocorrelations, of the two-dimensional randomly diluted Ising ferromagnet below the critical temperature via Monte Carlo simulations. We find that the autocorrelation function displays additive aging C(t,t{w})=C{st}(t)+C{ag}(t,t{w}), where the stationary part Cst} decays algebraically. The aging part shows anomalous scaling C{ag}(t,t{w})=C[h(t)h(t{w})], where h(u) is a nonhomogeneous function excluding a t/t{w} scaling.

Freezing transition of the directed polymer in a 1 + d random medium: location of the critical temperature and unusual critical properties

In dimension d > or =3, the directed polymer in a random medium undergoes a phase transition between a free phase at high temperature and a low-temperature disorder-dominated phase. For the latter phase, Fisher and Huse have proposed a droplet theory based on the scaling of the free-energy fluctuations Delta F(l) approximately l theta at scale l. On the other hand, in related growth models belonging to the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang universality class, Forrest and Tang have found that the height-height correlation function is logarithmic at the transition. For the directed polymer model at criticality, this translates into logarithmic free-energy fluctuations Delta FTc(l) approximately (lnl)sigma with sigma = 1/2. In this paper, we propose a droplet scaling analysis exactly at criticality based on this logarithmic scaling. Our main conclusion is that the typical correlation length xi(T) of the low-temperature phase diverges as ln xi(t) approximately [-ln(Tc-T)]1/sigma approximately [-ln(Tc-T)]2, instead of the usual power law xi(T) approximately (Tc-T)-v. Furthermore, the logarithmic dependence of Delta FTc(l) leads to the conclusion that the critical temperature Tc actually coincides with the explicit upper bound T2 derived by Derrida and co-workers, where T2 corresponds to the temperature below which the ratio Z 2 L/(ZL)2 diverges exponentially in L. Finally, since the Fisher-Huse droplet theory was initially introduced for the spin-glass phase, we briefly mention the similarities with and differences from the directed polymer model. If one speculates that the free energy of droplet excitations for spin glasses is also logarithmic at Tc, one obtains a logarithmic decay for the mean square correlation function at criticality, C2(r) approximately 1/(ln r)sigma, instead of the usual power law l/rd-2+eta.

Phase separation driven by surface diffusion: a Monte Carlo study

We propose a kinetic Ising model to study phase separation driven by surface diffusion. This model is referred to as Model S, and consists of the usual Kawasaki spin-exchange kinetics (Model B) in conjunction with a kinetic constraint. We use multispin coding techniques to develop fast algorithms for Monte Carlo simulations of Models B and S. We use these algorithms to study the late stages of pattern dynamics in these systems, and compare properties of the evolution morphologies, e.g., growth laws, domain distribution functions, and spatial and temporal correlation functions.

Autocorrelation functions for phase separation in ternary mixtures

We present numerical and analytical results for the autocorrelation functions which characterize domain growth in ternary mixtures. The numerical results are obtained from Monte Carlo simulations of the spin-1 Blume-Emery-Griffiths model with spin-exchange kinetics. Further, we model the autocorrelation functions using an approach based on the continuous-time random walk formalism. The aging property of these functions is related to the time dependence of the domain-size distribution. Our analytical results are found to be in good agreement with the numerical data.

Aging and equilibrium fluctuations for domain growth in ternary mixtures

We present numerical and analytical results for the autocorrelation functions which characterize domain growth in ternary mixtures. The numerical results are obtained from Monte Carlo studies of the spin-1 Blume-Emery-Griffiths model with spin-exchange kinetics. We formulate a stochastic model, which accounts for both aging and equilibrium contributions to the autocorrelation functions.

Barkhausen noise in a relaxor ferroelectric

Barkhausen noise, including both periodic and aperiodic components, is found in and near the relaxor regime of a familiar relaxor ferroelectric, PbMg(1/3)Nb(2/3)O3, driven by a periodic electric field. The temperature dependences of both the amplitude and spectral form show that the size of the coherent changes in the dipole moment shrink as the relaxor regime is entered, contrary to expectations based on some simple models.

Kinetics of domain growth in systems with local barriers

We study domain growth in spin-1 lattice models having nonconserved spin-flip kinetics with local barriers. Our primary motivation is to model the relaxational behavior of physical systems in which molecular motion is impeded by local kinetic barriers. The kinetic constraint is such that a spin from an up (down) state can flip to a down (up) state only via the zero state, which has a higher energy. We examine how the usual curvature-driven domain growth is affected by these local barriers, and whether the single-spin barriers have a collective effect. This paper presents comprehensive numerical results for phase ordering dynamics in this model using Monte Carlo simulations. We demonstrate dynamical scaling for domain-size distribution functions and spatial correlation functions. We also present results for the time dependence of characteristic length scales and autocorrelation functions. The length-scale behavior is interpreted in terms of the random walk of steps on domain boundaries. Furthermore, we present a simple stochastic model to derive an analytic expression for the autocorrelation function, which exhibits a stretched-exponential behavior over an extended regime-in agreement with our numerical simulations.