A simple spin model for three steps relaxation and secondary proccesses in glass formers

A number of general trends are known to occur in systems displaying secondary processes in glasses and glass formers. Universal features can be identified as components of large and small cooperativeness whose competition leads to excess wings or apart peaks in the susceptibility spectrum. To the aim of understanding such rich and complex phenomenology we analyze the behavior of a model combining two apart glassy components with a tunable different cooperativeness. The model salient feature is, indeed, based on the competition of the energetic contribution of groups of dynamically relevant variables, e.g., density fluctuations, interacting in small and large sets. We investigate how the model is able to reproduce the secondary processes physics without further ad hoc ingredients, displaying known trends and properties under cooling or pressing.Comment: 11 Pages, 11 Figure

Reply to Comment on ``Spherical 2+p spin-glass model: an analytically solvable model with a glass-to-glass transition''

In his Comment, Krakoviack [Phys. Rev. B (2007)] finds that the phase behavior of the s+p spin-glass model is different from what proposed by Crisanti and Leuzzi [Phys. Rev. B 73, 014412 (2006)] if s and p are larger than two and are separated well enough. He proposes a trial picture, based on a one step replica symmetry breaking solution, displaying a mode-coupling-like glass-to-glass transition line ending in a A3 singularity. However, actually, the physics of these systems changes when p-s is large, the instability of which the one step replica symmetry breaking glassy phase suffers turns out to be so wide ranging that the whole scenario proposed by Krakoviack must be seriously reconsidered.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure; reply to arXiv:0705.3187. To be published in Phys Rev B 76 (2007

The K-sat problem in a simple limit

We compute the thermodynamic properties of the 3-satisfiability problem in the infinite connectivity limit. In this limit the computations can be strongly simplified and the thermodynamical properties can be obtained with an high accuracy. We find evidence for a continuous replica symmetry breaking in the region of high number of clauses, $\alpha > \alpha_c$.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures. To appear in J. Stat. Phys. Minor change

The disordered Backgammon model

In this paper we consider an exactly solvable model which displays glassy behavior at zero temperature due to entropic barriers. The new ingredient of the model is the existence of different energy scales or modes associated to different relaxational time-scales. Low-temperature relaxation takes place by partial equilibration of successive lower energy modes. An adiabatic scaling solution, defined in terms of a threshold energy scale \eps^*, is proposed. For such a solution, modes with energy \eps\gg\eps^* are equilibrated at the bath temperature, modes with \eps\ll\eps^* remain out of equilibrium and relaxation occurs in the neighborhood of the threshold \eps\sim \eps^*. The model is presented as a toy example to investigate conditions related to the existence of an effective temperature in glassy systems and its possible dependence on the energy sector probed by the corresponding observable.Comment: 24 pages, 11 figure

The Complexity of the Spherical pp-spin spin glass model, revisited

Some questions concerning the calculation of the number of ``physical'' (metastable) states or complexity of the spherical $p$-spin spin glass model are reviewed and examined further. Particular attention is focused on the general calculation procedure which is discussed step-by-step.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure

The random Blume-Capel model on cubic lattice: first order inverse freezing in a 3D spin-glass system

We present a numerical study of the Blume-Capel model with quenched disorder in 3D. The phase diagram is characterized by spin-glass/paramagnet phase transitions of both first and second order in the thermodynamic sense. Numerical simulations are performed using the Exchange-Monte Carlo algorithm, providing clear evidence for inverse freezing. The main features at criticality and in the phase coexistence region are investigated. The whole inverse freezing transition appears to be first order. The second order transition appears to be in the same universality class of the Edwards-Anderson model. The nature of the spin-glass phase is analyzed by means of the finite size scaling behavior of the overlap distribution functions and the four-spins real-space correlation functions. Evidence for a replica symmetry breaking-like organization of states is provided.Comment: 18 pages, 24 figures, 7 table

Complexity of the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick Model in the Annealed Approximation

A careful critical analysis of the complexity, at the annealed level, of the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model has been performed. The complexity functional is proved to be always invariant under the Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin supersymmetry, disregarding the formulation used to define it. We consider two different saddle points of such functional, one satisfying the supersymmetry [A. Cavagna {\it et al.}, J. Phys. A {\bf 36} (2003) 1175] and the other one breaking it [A.J. Bray and M.A. Moore, J. Phys. C {\bf 13} (1980) L469]. We review the previews studies on the subject, linking different perspectives and pointing out some inadequacies and even inconsistencies in both solutions.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figure

Phase diagram and complexity of mode-locked lasers: from order to disorder

We investigate mode-locking processes in lasers displaying a variable degree of structural randomness, from standard optical cavities to multiple-scattering media. By employing methods mutuated from spin-glass theory, we analyze the mean-field Hamiltonian and derive a phase-diagram in terms of the pumping rate and the degree of disorder. Three phases are found: i) paramagnetic, corresponding to a noisy continuous wave emission, ii) ferromagnetic, that describes the standard passive mode-locking, and iii) the spin-glass in which the phases of the electromagnetic field are frozen in a exponentially large number of configurations. The way the mode-locking threshold is affected by the amount of disorder is quantified. The results are also relevant for other physical systems displaying a random Hamiltonian, like Bose-Einstein condensates and nonlinear optical beams.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

The Ising M-p-spin mean-field model for the structural glass: continuous vs. discontinuous transition

The critical behavior of a family of fully connected mean-field models with quenched disorder, the $M-p$ Ising spin glass, is analyzed, displaying a crossover between a continuous and a random first order phase transition as a control parameter is tuned. Due to its microscopic properties the model is straightforwardly extendable to finite dimensions in any geometry.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure, 1 tabl