Variational description of Gibbs-non-Gibbs dynamical transitions for the Curie-Weiss model

We perform a detailed study of Gibbs-non-Gibbs transitions for the Curie-Weiss model subject to independent spin-flip dynamics ("infinite-temperature" dynamics). We show that, in this setup, the program outlined in van Enter, Fern\'andez, den Hollander and Redig can be fully completed, namely that Gibbs-non-Gibbs transitions are equivalent to bifurcations in the set of global minima of the large-deviation rate function for the trajectories of the magnetization conditioned on their endpoint. As a consequence, we show that the time-evolved model is non-Gibbs if and only if this set is not a singleton for some value of the final magnetization. A detailed description of the possible scenarios of bifurcation is given, leading to a full characterization of passages from Gibbs to non-Gibbs -and vice versa- with sharp transition times (under the dynamics Gibbsianness can be lost and can be recovered). Our analysis expands the work of Ermolaev and Kulske who considered zero magnetic field and finite-temperature spin-flip dynamics. We consider both zero and non-zero magnetic field but restricted to infinite-temperature spin-flip dynamics. Our results reveal an interesting dependence on the interaction parameters, including the presence of forbidden regions for the optimal trajectories and the possible occurrence of overshoots and undershoots in the optimal trajectories. The numerical plots provided are obtained with the help of MATHEMATICA.Comment: Key words and phrases: Curie-Weiss model, spin-flip dynamics, Gibbs vs. non-Gibbs, dynamical transition, large deviations, action integral, bifurcation of rate functio

On the prevalence of non-Gibbsian states in mathematical physics

Gibbs measures are the main object of study in equilibrium statistical mechanics, and are used in many other contexts, including dynamical systems and ergodic theory, and spatial statistics. However, in a large number of natural instances one encounters measures that are not of Gibbsian form. We present here a number of examples of such non-Gibbsian measures, and discuss some of the underlying mathematical and physical issues to which they gave rise

Erasure entropies and Gibbs measures

Recently Verdu and Weissman introduced erasure entropies, which are meant to measure the information carried by one or more symbols given all of the remaining symbols in the realization of the random process or field. A natural relation to Gibbs measures has also been observed. In his short note we study this relation further, review a few earlier contributions from statistical mechanics, and provide the formula for the erasure entropy of a Gibbs measure in terms of the corresponding potentia. For some 2-dimensonal Ising models, for which Verdu and Weissman suggested a numerical procedure, we show how to obtain an exact formula for the erasure entropy. lComment: 1o pages, to appear in Markov Processes and Related Field

Scaling and Inverse Scaling in Anisotropic Bootstrap percolation

In bootstrap percolation it is known that the critical percolation threshold tends to converge slowly to zero with increasing system size, or, inversely, the critical size diverges fast when the percolation probability goes to zero. To obtain higher-order terms (that is, sharp and sharper thresholds) for the percolation threshold in general is a hard question. In the case of two-dimensional anisotropic models, sometimes correction terms can be obtained from inversion in a relatively simple manner.Comment: Contribution to the proceedings of the 2013 EURANDOM workshop Probabilistic Cellular Automata: Theory, Applications and Future Perspectives, equation typo corrected, constant of generalisation correcte

Aperiodicity in equilibrium systems: Between order and disorder

Spatial aperiodicity occurs in various models and material s. Although today the most well-known examples occur in the area of quasicrystals, other applications might also be of interest. Here we discuss some issues related to the notion and occurrence of aperiodic order in equilibrium statistical mechanics. In particular, we consider some spectral characterisations,and shortly review what is known about the occurrence of aperiodic order in lattice models at zero and non-zero temperatures. At the end some more speculative connections to the theory of (spin-)glasses are indicated.Comment: Contribution to ICQ12, some corrections and explanatory remarks adde

The Renormalization-Group peculiarities of Griffiths and Pearce: What have we learned?

We review what we have learned about the "Renormalization-Group peculiarities" which were discovered about twenty years ago by Griffiths and Pearce, and which questions they asked are still widely open. We also mention some related developments.Comment: Proceedings Marseille meeting on mathematical results in statistical mechanic

A remark on the notion of robust phase transitions

We point out that the high-q Potts model on a regular lattice at its transition temperature provides an example of a non-robust - in the sense recently proposed by Pemantle and Steif- phase transition

Problems with the definition of renormalized Hamiltonians for momentum-space renormalization transformations

For classical lattice systems with finite (Ising) spins, we show that the implementation of momentum-space renormalization at the level of Hamiltonians runs into the same type of difficulties as found for real-space transformations: Renormalized Hamiltonians are ill-defined in certain regions of the phase diagram.Comment: 14 pages, late

Gibbs-non-Gibbs transitions via large deviations: computable examples

We give new and explicitly computable examples of Gibbs-non-Gibbs transitions of mean-field type, using the large deviation approach introduced in [4]. These examples include Brownian motion with small variance and related diffusion processes, such as the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process, as well as birth and death processes. We show for a large class of initial measures and diffusive dynamics both short-time conservation of Gibbsianness and dynamical Gibbs-non-Gibbs transitions

Decimation of the Dyson-Ising Ferromagnet

We study the decimation to a sublattice of half the sites, of the one-dimensional Dyson-Ising ferromagnet with slowly decaying long-range pair interactions of the form $\frac{1}{{|i-j|}^{\alpha}}$, in the phase transition region (1< $\alpha \leq$ 2, and low temperature). We prove non-Gibbsianness of the decimated measure at low enough temperatures by exhibiting a point of essential discontinuity for the finite-volume conditional probabilities of decimated Gibbs measures. Thus result complements previous work proving conservation of Gibbsianness for fastly decaying potentials ($\alpha$ > 2) and provides an example of a "standard" non-Gibbsian result in one dimension, in the vein of similar resuts in higher dimensions for short-range models. We also discuss how these measures could fit within a generalized (almost vs. weak) Gibbsian framework. Moreover we comment on the possibility of similar results for some other transformations.Comment: 18 pages, some corrections and references added, to appear in Stoch.Proc.App