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arXiv:1311.1318 · Physical Review B

Same universality class for the critical behavior in and out of equilibrium in a quenched random field

Ivan Balog, Matthieu Tissier, Gilles Tarjus

Published Mar 7, 2014• 10 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The random-field Ising model (RFIM) is one of the simplest statistical-mechanical models that captures the anomalous irreversible collective response seen in a wide range of physical, biological, or socioeconomic situations in the presence of interactions and intrinsic heterogeneity or disorder. When slowly driven at zero temperature, it can display an out-of-equilibrium phase transition associated with critical scaling (``crackling noise''), while it undergoes at equilibrium, under either temperature or disorder-strength changes, a thermodynamic phase transition. We show that the out-of-equilibrium and equilibrium critical behaviors are in the same universality class: they are controlled, in the renormalization-group (RG) sense, by the same zero-temperature fixed point. We do so by combining a field-theoretical formalism that accounts for the multiple metastable states and the exact (functional) RG. As a spin-off, we also demonstrate that critical fluids in disordered porous media are in the same universality class as the RFIM, thereby unifying a broad spectrum of equilibrium and out-of-equilibrium phenomena.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.89.104201

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The random field Ising model (RFIM) has been investigated extensively both theoretically and experimentally in recent years [1–4]. Some questions, such as the lower critical dimension and the existence of a static phase transition, have already been solved from the theoretical point of view, but other questions, such as the existence of the tricritical point, are still open. However, it is now understood that the RFIM describes the essential physics of a rich class of experimentally accessible disordered systems. These include structural phase transitions in random alloys, commensurate charge-density-wave systems with impurity pinning, binary fluid mixtures in random porous media, and the melting of intercalates in layered compounds such as TiS2. The behavior of the RFIM is governed by the competing tendencies of the spins to align ferromagnetically under impetus of the exchange or to follow the local fields and thus be uncorrelated. The RFIM has been studied using different methods. One of the authors [5] of the present paper has developed a new version of effective field theory, which extends the approximation methods [6, 7] to random Ising systems, in which randomness can be described by discrete random variables and the geometry of the lattice can be easily taken into account. This method is based on the determination of the probability distribution of the discrete variables, which takes into account exactly the self-site correlations. This approach has been used to study cooperative phenomena and phase transitions in various systems, and gives useful qualitative and quantitative insights for the critical behavior of a wide variety of classical and quantum lattice spin systems [8–10]. In recent decades, the renormalization group theory of phase transitions and critical phenomena represents one of the most powerful tools of theoretical physics. Therefore, employing this theory (which can be applied for weak fields), the proof

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The random-field Ising model (RFIM) is one of the simplest statistical-mechanical models that captures the anomalous irreversible collective response seen in a wide range of physical, biological, or socioeconomic situations in the presence of interactions and intrinsic heterogeneity or disorder. When slowly driven at zero temperature, it can display an out-of-equilibrium phase transition associated with critical scaling (``crackling noise''), while it undergoes at equilibrium, under either temperature or disorder-strength changes, a thermodynamic phase transition. We show that the out-of-equilibrium and equilibrium critical behaviors are in the same universality class: they are controlled, in the renormalization-group (RG) sense, by the same zero-temperature fixed point. We do so by combining a field-theoretical formalism that accounts for the multiple metastable states and the exact (functional) RG. As a spin-off, we also demonstrate that critical fluids in disordered porous media are in the same universality class as the RFIM, thereby unifying a broad spectrum of equilibrium and out-of-equilibrium phenomena.
Abstract Criticality in the class of disordered systems comprising the random-field Ising model (RFIM) and elastic manifolds in a random environment is controlled by zero-temperature fixed points that must be treated through a functional renormalization group (RG). We apply the nonperturbative functional RG approach that we have previously used to describe the RFIM in and out of equilibrium (Balog et al 2018 Phys. Rev . B 97 094204) to the simpler and by now well-studied case of the random elastic manifold model. We recover the main known properties, critical exponents and scaling functions, of both the pinned phase of the manifold at equilibrium and the depinning threshold in the athermally and quasi-statically driven case for any dimension . This successful benchmarking of our theoretical approach gives strong support to the results that we have previously obtained for the RFIM, in particular concerning the distinct universality classes of the equilibrium and out-of-equilibrium (hysteresis) critical points below a critical dimension .
We show that, contrary to previous suggestions based on computer simulations or erroneous theoretical treatments, the critical points of the random-field Ising model out of equilibrium, when quasistatically changing the applied source at zero temperature, and in equilibrium are not in the same universality class below some critical dimension ${d}_{DR}\ensuremath{\approx}5.1$. We demonstrate this by implementing a nonperturbative functional renormalization group for the associated dynamical field theory. Above dDR{d}_{DR}dDR​, the avalanches, which characterize the evolution of the system at zero temperature, become irrelevant at large distance, and hysteresis and equilibrium critical points are then controlled by the same fixed point. We explain how to use computer simulation and finite-size scaling to check the correspondence between in and out of equilibrium criticality in a far less ambiguous way than done so far.
The Random Field Ising Model (RFIM) represents one of the simplest models of cooperative behaviour with quenched disorder, and it is, in a way, complementary to the Ising Spin Glass which will be extensively treated later in this book. It accounts for the presence of a random external magnetic field which antagonizes the ordering induced by the ferromagnetic spin–spin interactions. From an experimental point of view, on the other hand, as shown by Fishman and Aharony (1979) and Cardy (1984), it is equivalent to a dilute anti-ferromagnet in a uniform field (see Belanger, 1998 for a recent review on experimental results). Despite twenty-five years of active and continuous research the RFIM is not yet completely understood. The problem seems related to the presence of bound states in the ferromagnetic phase, which make the standard theoretical approaches not adequate to analyze the critical behaviour. Here we discuss the RFIM in the context of perturbative field theory. The chapter is organized as follows: in Section 2.1 we define the model and outline the main expectations for its qualitative behaviour. In Section 2.2 we introduce an effective replicated ϕ 4 field model where the disorder has been integrated out. Then we perform a perturbative analysis on this model (Section 2.3) and illustrate how the so-called dimensional reduction arises (Section 2.4). Finally, in Section 2.5 we introduce some generalized couplings which need to be taken into account to properly describe the system; we perform a perturbative Renormalization Group (RG) close to the upper critical dimension (Sections 2.6 and 2.7) and discuss the occurrence of a vitrous transition (Section 2.8).
We study the correlated-disorder-driven zero-temperature equilibrium phase transition of the random-field Ising magnet (RFIM) using exact numerical ground-state calculations for cubic lattices. We consider correlations of the quenched disorder decaying proportionally to ra{r}^{a}ra, where rrr is the distance between two lattice sites and a<0a<0a<0. To obtain exact ground states, we use a well-established mapping to the graph-theoretical maximum-flow problem, which allows us to study large system sizes of more than $2\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{6}$ spins. We use finite-size-scaling analyses for values $a={\ensuremath{-}1,\ensuremath{-}2,\ensuremath{-}3,\ensuremath{-}7}$ to calculate the critical point and the critical exponents characterizing the behavior of the specific heat, magnetization, susceptibility, and the correlation length close to the critical point. We find basically the same critical behavior as for the RFIM with $\ensuremath{\delta}$-correlated disorder, except for the finite-size exponent of the susceptibility and for the case $a\ensuremath{\ge}\ensuremath{-}2$, where the results are also compatible with a phase transition at infinitesimal disorder strength. We numerically confirm earlier predictions.
The random field Ising model (RFIM) has been investigated extensively both theoretically and experimentally in recent years [1–4]. Some questions, such as the lower critical dimension and the existence of a static phase transition, have already been solved from the theoretical point of view, but other questions, such as the existence of the tricritical point, are still open. However, it is now understood that the RFIM describes the essential physics of a rich class of experimentally accessible disordered systems. These include structural phase transitions in random alloys, commensurate charge-density-wave systems with impurity pinning, binary fluid mixtures in random porous media, and the melting of intercalates in layered compounds such as TiS2. The behavior of the RFIM is governed by the competing tendencies of the spins to align ferromagnetically under impetus of the exchange or to follow the local fields and thus be uncorrelated. The RFIM has been studied using different methods. One of the authors [5] of the present paper has developed a new version of effective field theory, which extends the approximation methods [6, 7] to random Ising systems, in which randomness can be described by discrete random variables and the geometry of the lattice can be easily taken into account. This method is based on the determination of the probability distribution of the discrete variables, which takes into account exactly the self-site correlations. This approach has been used to study cooperative phenomena and phase transitions in various systems, and gives useful qualitative and quantitative insights for the critical behavior of a wide variety of classical and quantum lattice spin systems [8–10]. In recent decades, the renormalization group theory of phase transitions and critical phenomena represents one of the most powerful tools of theoretical physics. Therefore, employing this theory (which can be applied for weak fields), the proof