High-temperature series for the bond-diluted Ising model in 3, 4 and 5 dimensions

In order to study the influence of quenched disorder on second-order phase transitions, high-temperature series expansions of the \sus and the free energy are obtained for the quenched bond-diluted Ising model in $d = 3$--5 dimensions. They are analysed using different extrapolation methods tailored to the expected singularity behaviours. In $d = 4$ and 5 dimensions we confirm that the critical behaviour is governed by the pure fixed point up to dilutions near the geometric bond percolation threshold. The existence and form of logarithmic corrections for the pure Ising model in $d = 4$ is confirmed and our results for the critical behaviour of the diluted system are in agreement with the type of singularity predicted by renormalization group considerations. In three dimensions we find large crossover effects between the pure Ising, percolation and random fixed point. We estimate the critical exponent of the \sus to be $\gamma =1.305(5)$ at the random fixed point.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figure

Universality class of 3D site-diluted and bond-diluted Ising systems

We present a finite-size scaling analysis of high-statistics Monte Carlo simulations of the three-dimensional randomly site-diluted and bond-diluted Ising model. The critical behavior of these systems is affected by slowly-decaying scaling corrections which make the accurate determination of their universal asymptotic behavior quite hard, requiring an effective control of the scaling corrections. For this purpose we exploit improved Hamiltonians, for which the leading scaling corrections are suppressed for any thermodynamic quantity, and improved observables, for which the leading scaling corrections are suppressed for any model belonging to the same universality class. The results of the finite-size scaling analysis provide strong numerical evidence that phase transitions in three-dimensional randomly site-diluted and bond-diluted Ising models belong to the same randomly dilute Ising universality class. We obtain accurate estimates of the critical exponents, $\nu=0.683(2)$, $\eta=0.036(1)$, $\alpha=-0.049(6)$, $\gamma=1.341(4)$, $\beta=0.354(1)$, $\delta=4.792(6)$, and of the leading and next-to-leading correction-to-scaling exponents, $\omega=0.33(3)$ and $\omega_2=0.82(8)$.Comment: 45 pages, 22 figs, revised estimate of n

Star-graph expansions for bond-diluted Potts models

We derive high-temperature series expansions for the free energy and the susceptibility of random-bond $q$-state Potts models on hypercubic lattices using a star-graph expansion technique. This method enables the exact calculation of quenched disorder averages for arbitrary uncorrelated coupling distributions. Moreover, we can keep the disorder strength $p$ as well as the dimension $d$ as symbolic parameters. By applying several series analysis techniques to the new series expansions, one can scan large regions of the $(p,d)$ parameter space for any value of $q$. For the bond-diluted 4-state Potts model in three dimensions, which exhibits a rather strong first-order phase transition in the undiluted case, we present results for the transition temperature and the effective critical exponent $\gamma$ as a function of $p$ as obtained from the analysis of susceptibility series up to order 18. A comparison with recent Monte Carlo data (Chatelain {\em et al.}, Phys. Rev. E64, 036120(2001)) shows signals for the softening to a second-order transition at finite disorder strength.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

Unpolarized quasielectrons and the spin polarization at filling fractions between 1/3 and 2/5

We prove that for a hard core interaction the ground state spin polarization in the low Zeeman energy limit is given by $P=2/\nu-5$ for filling fractions in the range $1/3 \leq\nu\leq 2/5$. The same result holds for a Coulomb potential except for marginally small magnetic fields. At the magnetic fields $B<20T$ unpolarized quasielectrons can manifest themselves by a characteristic peak in the I-V characteristics for tunneling between two $\nu=1/3$ ferromagnets.Comment: 8 pages, Latex. accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.

Static solitons with non-zero Hopf number

We investigate a generalized non-linear O(3) $\sigma$-model in three space dimensions where the fields are maps $S^3 \mapsto S^2$. Such maps are classified by a homotopy invariant called the Hopf number which takes integer values. The model exhibits soliton solutions of closed vortex type which have a lower topological bound on their energies. We explicitly compute the fields for topological charge 1 and 2 and discuss their shapes and binding energies. The effect of an additional potential term is considered and an approximation is given for the spectrum of slowly rotating solitons.Comment: 13 pages, RevTeX, 7 Postscript figures, minor changes have been made, a reference has been corrected and a figure replace

Spontaneous annihilation of high-density matter in the electroweak theory

In the presence of fermionic matter the topologically distinct vacua of the standard model are metastable and can decay by tunneling through the sphaleron barrier. This process annihilates one fermion per doublet due to the anomalous non-conservation of baryon and lepton currents and is accompanied by a production of gauge and Higgs bosons. We present a numerical method to obtain local bounce solutions which minimize the Euclidean action in the space of all configurations connecting two adjacent topological sectors. These solutions determine the decay rate and the configuration of the fields after the tunneling. We also follow the real time evolution of this configuration and analyze the spectrum of the created bosons. If the matter density exceeds some critical value, the exponentially suppressed tunneling triggers off an avalanche producing an enormous amount of bosons.Comment: 38 pages, 6 Postscript figure

The Harris-Luck criterion for random lattices

The Harris-Luck criterion judges the relevance of (potentially) spatially correlated, quenched disorder induced by, e.g., random bonds, randomly diluted sites or a quasi-periodicity of the lattice, for altering the critical behavior of a coupled matter system. We investigate the applicability of this type of criterion to the case of spin variables coupled to random lattices. Their aptitude to alter critical behavior depends on the degree of spatial correlations present, which is quantified by a wandering exponent. We consider the cases of Poissonian random graphs resulting from the Voronoi-Delaunay construction and of planar, ``fat'' $\phi^3$ Feynman diagrams and precisely determine their wandering exponents. The resulting predictions are compared to various exact and numerical results for the Potts model coupled to these quenched ensembles of random graphs.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables, REVTeX 4. Version as published, one figure added for clarification, minor re-wordings and typo cleanu

Fluctuation corrections to bubble nucleation

The fluctuation determinant which determines the preexponential factor of the transition rate for minimal bubbles is computed for the electroweak theory with $\sin \Theta_W = 0$. As the basic action we use the three-dimensional high-temperature action including, besides temperature dependent masses, the $T \Phi^3$ one-loop contribution which makes the phase transition first order. The results show that this contribution (which has then to be subtracted from the exact result) gives the dominant contribution to the one-loop effective action. The remaining correction is of the order of, but in general larger than the critical bubble action and suppresses the transition rate. The results for the Higgs field fluctuations are compared with those of an approximate heat kernel computation of Kripfganz et al., good agreement is found for small bubbles, strong deviations for large thin-wall bubbles.Comment: 19 pages, LaTeX, no macros, no figure

One-loop corrections to the metastable vacuum decay

We evaluate the one-loop prefactor in the false vacuum decay rate in a theory of a self interacting scalar field in 3+1 dimensions. We use a numerical method, established some time ago, which is based on a well-known theorem on functional determinants. The proper handling of zero modes and of renormalization is discussed. The numerical results in particular show that quantum corrections become smaller away from the thin-wall case. In the thin-wall limit the numerical results are found to join into those obtained by a gradient expansion.Comment: 31 pages, 7 figure