Block renormalization study on the nonequilibrium chiral Ising model

One-dimensional annihilating random walk with long-range interaction

We study the annihilating random walk with long-range interaction in one dimension. Each particle performs random walks on a one-dimensional ring in such a way that the probability of hopping toward the nearest particle is W=[1-ɛ(x+μ)^{-σ}]/2 (the probability of moving away from its nearest particle is 1-W), where x is the distance from the hopping particle to its nearest particle and ɛ, μ, and σ are parameters. For positive (negative) ɛ, a particle is effectively repulsed (attracted) by its nearest particle and each hopping is generally biased. On encounter, two particles are immediately removed from the system. We first study the survival probability and the mean spreading behaves in the long-time limit if there are only two particles in the beginning. Then we study how the density decays to zero if all sites are occupied at the outset. We find that the asymptotic behaviors are classified by seven categories: (i) σ>1 or ɛ=0, (ii) σ=1 and 2ɛ>1, (iii) σ=1 and 2ɛ=1, (iv) σ=1 and 2ɛ<1, (v) σ<1 and ɛ>0, (vi) σ=0 and ɛ<0, and (vii) 0<σ<1 and ɛ<0. The asymptotic behaviors in each category are universal in the sense that μ (and sometimes ɛ) cannot affect the asymptotic behaviors.

Coarsening and persistence in a one-dimensional system of orienting arrowheads: Domain-wall kinetics with A+B→0

We demonstrate the large-scale effects of the interplay between shape and hard-core interactions in a system with left- and right-pointing arrowheads <> on a line, with reorientation dynamics. This interplay leads to the formation of two types of domain walls, >< (A) and <> (B). The correlation length in the equilibrium state diverges exponentially with increasing arrowhead density, with an ordered state of like orientations arising in the limit. In this high-density limit, the A domain walls diffuse, while the B walls are static. In time, the approach to the ordered state is described by a coarsening process governed by the kinetics of domain-wall annihilation A+B→0, quite different from the A+A→0 kinetics pertinent to the Glauber-Ising model. The survival probability of a finite set of walls is shown to decay exponentially with time, in contrast to the power-law decay known for A+A→0. In the thermodynamic limit with a finite density of walls, coarsening as a function of time t is studied by simulation. While the number of walls falls as t^{-1/2}, the fraction of persistent arrowheads decays as t^{-θ} where θ is close to 1/4, quite different from the Ising value. The global persistence too has θ=1/4, as follows from a heuristic argument. In a generalization where the B walls diffuse slowly, θ varies continuously, increasing with increasing diffusion constant.

Flocking with discrete symmetry: The two-dimensional active Ising model

We study in detail the active Ising model, a stochastic lattice gas where collective motion emerges from the spontaneous breaking of a discrete symmetry. On a two-dimensional lattice, active particles undergo a diffusion biased in one of two possible directions (left and right) and align ferromagnetically their direction of motion, hence yielding a minimal flocking model with discrete rotational symmetry. We show that the transition to collective motion amounts in this model to a bona fide liquid-gas phase transition in the canonical ensemble. The phase diagram in the density-velocity parameter plane has a critical point at zero velocity which belongs to the Ising universality class. In the density-temperature "canonical" ensemble, the usual critical point of the equilibrium liquid-gas transition is sent to infinite density because the different symmetries between liquid and gas phases preclude a supercritical region. We build a continuum theory which reproduces qualitatively the behavior of the microscopic model. In particular, we predict analytically the shapes of the phase diagrams in the vicinity of the critical points, the binodal and spinodal densities at coexistence, and the speeds and shapes of the phase-separated profiles.