Percolation in three-dimensional random field Ising magnets

The structure of the three-dimensional random field Ising magnet is studied by ground state calculations. We investigate the percolation of the minority spin orientation in the paramagnetic phase above the bulk phase transition, located at [Delta/J]_c ~= 2.27, where Delta is the standard deviation of the Gaussian random fields (J=1). With an external field H there is a disorder strength dependent critical field +/- H_c(Delta) for the down (or up) spin spanning. The percolation transition is in the standard percolation universality class. H_c ~ (Delta - Delta_p)^{delta}, where Delta_p = 2.43 +/- 0.01 and delta = 1.31 +/- 0.03, implying a critical line for Delta_c < Delta <= Delta_p. When, with zero external field, Delta is decreased from a large value there is a transition from the simultaneous up and down spin spanning, with probability Pi_{uparrow downarrow} = 1.00 to Pi_{uparrow downarrow} = 0. This is located at Delta = 2.32 +/- 0.01, i.e., above Delta_c. The spanning cluster has the fractal dimension of standard percolation D_f = 2.53 at H = H_c(Delta). We provide evidence that this is asymptotically true even at H=0 for Delta_c < Delta <= Delta_p beyond a crossover scale that diverges as Delta_c is approached from above. Percolation implies extra finite size effects in the ground states of the 3D RFIM.Comment: replaced with version to appear in Physical Review

Critical behavior of dissipative two-dimensional spin lattices

We explore critical properties of two-dimensional lattices of spins interacting via an anisotropic Heisenberg Hamiltonian and subject to incoherent spin flips. We determine the steady-state solution of the master equation for the density matrix via the corner-space renormalization method. We investigate the finite-size scaling and critical exponent of the magnetic linear susceptibility associated to a dissipative ferromagnetic transition. We show that the Von Neumann entropy increases across the critical point, revealing a strongly mixed character of the ferromagnetic phase. Entanglement is witnessed by the quantum Fisher information which exhibits a critical behavior at the transition point, showing that quantum correlations play a crucial role in the transition even though the system is in a mixed state.Comment: Accepted for publication on Phys. Rev. B (6 pages, 5 figures

Finite-Size Corrections for Ground States of Edwards-Anderson Spin Glasses

Extensive computations of ground state energies of the Edwards-Anderson spin glass on bond-diluted, hypercubic lattices are conducted in dimensions d=3,..,7. Results are presented for bond-densities exactly at the percolation threshold, p=p_c, and deep within the glassy regime, p>p_c, where finding ground-states becomes a hard combinatorial problem. Finite-size corrections of the form 1/N^w are shown to be consistent throughout with the prediction w=1-y/d, where y refers to the "stiffness" exponent that controls the formation of domain wall excitations at low temperatures. At p=p_c, an extrapolation for $d\to\infty$ appears to match our mean-field results for these corrections. In the glassy phase, w does not approach the value of 2/3 for large d predicted from simulations of the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick spin glass. However, the value of w reached at the upper critical dimension does match certain mean-field spin glass models on sparse random networks of regular degree called Bethe lattices.Comment: 6 pages, RevTex4, all ps figures included, corrected and final version with extended analysis and more data, such as for case d=3. Find additional information at http://www.physics.emory.edu/faculty/boettcher

Interface Energy in the Edwards-Anderson model

We numerically investigate the spin glass energy interface problem in three dimensions. We analyze the energy cost of changing the overlap from -1 to +1 at one boundary of two coupled systems (in the other boundary the overlap is kept fixed to +1). We implement a parallel tempering algorithm that simulate finite temperature systems and work with both cubic lattices and parallelepiped with fixed aspect ratio. We find results consistent with a lower critical dimension $D_c=2.5$. The results show a good agreement with the mean field theory predictions.Comment: 5 pages; 7 figures; corrected typos; to appear in JS

Finite time and asymptotic behaviour of the maximal excursion of a random walk

We evaluate the limit distribution of the maximal excursion of a random walk in any dimension for homogeneous environments and for self-similar supports under the assumption of spherical symmetry. This distribution is obtained in closed form and is an approximation of the exact distribution comparable to that obtained by real space renormalization methods. Then we focus on the early time behaviour of this quantity. The instantaneous diffusion exponent $\nu_n$ exhibits a systematic overshooting of the long time exponent. Exact results are obtained in one dimension up to third order in $n^{-1/2}$. In two dimensions, on a regular lattice and on the Sierpi\'nski gasket we find numerically that the analytic scaling $\nu_n \simeq \nu+A n^{-\nu}$ holds.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, accepted J. Phys.