Barriers, trapping times, and overlaps between local minima in the dynamics of the disordered Ising p-spin model

Characteristics of an Ising-like Model with Ferromagnetic and Antiferromagnetic Interactions

In the framework of mean field approximation, we consider a spin system consisting of two interacting sub-ensembles. The intra-ensemble interactions are ferromagnetic, while the inter-ensemble interactions are antiferromagnetic. We define the effective number of the nearest neighbors and show that if the two sub-ensembles have the same effective number of the nearest neighbors, the classical form of critical exponents (α=0, β=1/2, γ=γ'=1, δ=3) gives way to the non-classical form (α=0, β=3/2, γ=γ'=0, δ=1), and the scaling function changes simultaneously. We demonstrate that this system allows for two second-order phase transitions and two first-order phase transitions. We observe that an external magnetic field does not destroy the phase transitions but only shifts their critical points, allowing for control of the system's parameters. We discuss the regime when the magnetization as a function of the magnetic field develops a low-magnetization plateau and show that the height of this plateau abruptly rises to the value of one when the magnetic field reaches a critical value. Our analytical results are supported by a Monte Carlo simulation of a three-dimensional layered model.

Competition between energy- and entropy-driven activation in glasses

In simplified models of glasses we clarify the existence of two different kinds of coexisting activated dynamics, with one of the two dominating over the other. One is the energy barrier hopping that is typically used to understand activation, and the other, which we call entropic activation, is driven by the scarcity of convenient directions in phase space. When entropic activation dominates, the height of the energy barriers is no longer the primary factor governing the system's slowdown. In our analysis, dominance of one mechanism over the other depends on temperature and the shape of the density of states. We also find that at low temperatures a phase transition between the two kinds of activation can occur. Our observations are used to provide a scenario that can harmonize the facilitation and thermodynamic pictures of the slowdown of glasses into a single description.

Localization properties of the sparse Barrat-Mézard trap model

Inspired by works on the Anderson model on sparse graphs, we devise a method to analyze the localization properties of sparse systems that may be solved using cavity theory. We apply this method to study the properties of the eigenvectors of the master operator of the sparse Barrat-Mézard trap model, with an emphasis on the extended phase. As probes for localization, we consider the inverse participation ratio and the correlation volume, both dependent on the distribution of the diagonal elements of the resolvent. Our results reveal a rich and nontrivial behavior of the estimators across the spectrum of relaxation rates and an interplay between entropic and activation mechanisms of relaxation that give rise to localized modes embedded in the bulk of extended states. We characterize this route to localization and find it to be distinct from the paradigmatic Anderson model or standard random matrix systems.

Accelerating, to some extent, the p-spin dynamics

We consider a detailed-balance-violating dynamics whose stationary state is a prescribed Boltzmann distribution. Such dynamics have been shown to be faster than any equilibrium counterpart. We quantify the gain in convergence speed for a system whose energy landscape displays one and then an infinite number of energy barriers. In the latter case, we work with the mean-field disordered p spin and show that the convergence to equilibrium or to the nonergodic phase is accelerated during both the β- and α-relaxation stages. An interpretation in terms of trajectories in phase space and of an accidental fluctuation-dissipation theorem is provided.

Revisiting the concept of activation in supercooled liquids

In this work, we revisit the description of dynamics based on the concepts of metabasins and activation in mildly supercooled liquids via the analysis of the dynamics of a paradigmatic glass former between its onset temperature [Formula: see text] and mode-coupling temperature [Formula: see text]. First, we provide measures that demonstrate that the onset of glassiness is indeed connected to the landscape, and that metabasin waiting time distributions are so broad that the system can remain stuck in a metabasin for times that exceed [Formula: see text] by orders of magnitude. We then reanalyze the transitions between metabasins, providing several indications that the standard picture of activated dynamics in terms of traps does not hold in this regime. Instead, we propose that here activation is principally driven by entropic instead of energetic barriers. In particular, we illustrate that activation is not controlled by the hopping of high energetic barriers and should more properly be interpreted as the entropic selection of nearly barrierless but rare pathways connecting metabasins on the landscape.