4 research outputs found
Simplicity of State and Overlap Structure in Finite-Volume Realistic Spin Glasses
We present a combination of heuristic and rigorous arguments indicating that
both the pure state structure and the overlap structure of realistic spin
glasses should be relatively simple: in a large finite volume with
coupling-independent boundary conditions, such as periodic, at most a pair of
flip-related (or the appropriate number of symmetry-related in the non-Ising
case) states appear, and the Parisi overlap distribution correspondingly
exhibits at most a pair of delta-functions at plus/minus the self-overlap. This
rules out the nonstandard SK picture introduced by us earlier, and when
combined with our previous elimination of more standard versions of the mean
field picture, argues against the possibility of even limited versions of mean
field ordering in realistic spin glasses. If broken spin flip symmetry should
occur, this leaves open two main possibilities for ordering in the spin glass
phase: the droplet/scaling two-state picture, and the chaotic pairs many-state
picture introduced by us earlier. We present scaling arguments which provide a
possible physical basis for the latter picture, and discuss possible reasons
behind numerical observations of more complicated overlap structures in finite
volumes.Comment: 22 pages (LaTeX; needs revtex), 1 figure (PostScript); to appear in
Physical Review
On the cavity method for decimated random constraint satisfaction problems and the analysis of belief propagation guided decimation algorithms
We introduce a version of the cavity method for diluted mean-field spin
models that allows the computation of thermodynamic quantities similar to the
Franz-Parisi quenched potential in sparse random graph models. This method is
developed in the particular case of partially decimated random constraint
satisfaction problems. This allows to develop a theoretical understanding of a
class of algorithms for solving constraint satisfaction problems, in which
elementary degrees of freedom are sequentially assigned according to the
results of a message passing procedure (belief-propagation). We confront this
theoretical analysis to the results of extensive numerical simulations.Comment: 32 pages, 24 figure
The metastate approach to thermodynamic chaos
In realistic disordered systems, such as the Edwards-Anderson (EA) spin
glass, no order parameter, such as the Parisi overlap distribution, can be both
translation-invariant and non-self-averaging. The standard mean-field picture
of the EA spin glass phase can therefore not be valid in any dimension and at
any temperature. Further analysis shows that, in general, when systems have
many competing (pure) thermodynamic states, a single state which is a mixture
of many of them (as in the standard mean-field picture) contains insufficient
information to reveal the full thermodynamic structure. We propose a different
approach, in which an appropriate thermodynamic description of such a system is
instead based on a metastate, which is an ensemble of (possibly mixed)
thermodynamic states. This approach, modelled on chaotic dynamical systems, is
needed when chaotic size dependence (of finite volume correlations) is present.
Here replicas arise in a natural way, when a metastate is specified by its
(meta)correlations. The metastate approach explains, connects, and unifies such
concepts as replica symmetry breaking, chaotic size dependence and replica
non-independence. Furthermore, it replaces the older idea of non-self-averaging
as dependence on the bulk couplings with the concept of dependence on the state
within the metastate at fixed coupling realization. We use these ideas to
classify possible metastates for the EA model, and discuss two scenarios
introduced by us earlier --- a nonstandard mean-field picture and a picture
intermediate between that and the usual scaling/droplet picture.Comment: LaTeX file, 49 page