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arXiv:1603.08075 · Physical review. E

Contact process with temporal disorder

Hatem Barghathi, Thomas Vojta, José A. Hoyos

Published Aug 9, 2016• 20 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We investigate the influence of time-varying environmental noise, i.e., temporal disorder, on the nonequilibrium phase transition of the contact process. Combining a real-time renormalization group, scaling theory, and large scale Monte-Carlo simulations in one and two dimensions, we show that the temporal disorder gives rise to an exotic critical point. At criticality, the effective noise amplitude diverges with increasing time scale, and the probability distribution of the density becomes infinitely broad, even on a logarithmic scale. Moreover, the average density and survival probability decay only logarithmically with time. This infinite-noise critical behavior can be understood as the temporal counterpart of infinite-randomness critical behavior in spatially disordered systems, but with exchanged roles of space and time. We also analyze the generality of our results, and we discuss potential experiments.

DOI
10.1103/physreve.94.022111

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We study the nonequilibrium phase transition in the two-dimensional contact process on a randomly diluted lattice by means of large-scale Monte Carlo simulations for times up to 10;{10} and system sizes up to 8000x8000 sites. Our data provide strong evidence for the transition being controlled by an exotic infinite-randomness critical point with activated (exponential) dynamical scaling. We calculate the critical exponents of the transition and find them to be universal, i.e., independent of disorder strength. The Griffiths region between the clean and the dirty critical points exhibits power-law dynamical scaling with continuously varying exponents. We discuss the generality of our findings and relate them to a broader theory of rare region effects at phase transitions with quenched disorder. Our results are of importance beyond absorbing state transitions because, according to a strong-disorder renormalization group analysis, our transition belongs to the universality class of the two-dimensional random transverse-field Ising model.
We have studied the phase transition of the contact process near a multiple junction of M semi-infinite chains by Monte Carlo simulations. As opposed to the continuous transitions of the translationally invariant (M=2) and semi-infinite (M=1) system, the local order parameter is found to be discontinuous for M>2. Furthermore, the temporal correlation length diverges algebraically as the critical point is approached, but with different exponents on the two sides of the transition. In the active phase, the estimate is compatible with the bulk value, while in the inactive phase it exceeds the bulk value and increases with M. The unusual local critical behavior is explained by a scaling theory with an irrelevant variable, which becomes dangerous in the inactive phase. Quenched spatial disorder is found to make the transition continuous in agreement with earlier renormalization group results.
We study the effects of spatially inhomogeneous diffusion on the non-equilibrium phase transition in the contact process. The directed-percolation critical point in the contact process is known to be stable against the addition of a spatially uniform diffusion term. Correspondingly, we find quenched randomness in the diffusion rates to be irrelevant by power counting in the field-theory of the contact process. However, large-scale Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate that such diffusion disorder destabilizes the clean directed percolation critical point. Instead, the transition belongs to the same infinite-randomness universality class as the contact process with disorder in the infection or healing rates. To explain these results, we develop an effective model with an infinite diffusion rate; it shows that diffusion disorder generates an effective disorder in the healing rates. The same mechanism also appears in the field-theoretic description: Whereas diffusion disorder is irrelevant by power-counting, it generates standard random-mass disorder under renormalization. We discuss the validity of this mechanism for other absorbing state transitions and non-equilibrium phase transitions in general.
We study the time dependence of the local persistence probability during a nonstationary time evolution in the disordered contact process in d=1, 2, and 3 dimensions. We present a method for calculating the persistence with the strong-disorder renormalization group (SDRG) technique, which we then apply at the critical point analytically for d=1 and numerically for d=2,3. According to the results, the average persistence decays at late times as an inverse power of the logarithm of time, with a universal dimension-dependent generalized exponent. For d=1, the distribution of sample-dependent local persistence is shown to be characterized by a universal limit distribution of effective persistence exponents. Using a phenomenological approach of rare-region effects in the active phase, we obtain a nonuniversal algebraic decay of the average persistence for d=1 and enhanced power laws for d>1. As an exception, for randomly diluted lattices, the algebraic decay remains valid for d>1, which is explained by the contribution of dangling ends. Results on the time dependence of average persistence are confirmed by Monte Carlo simulations. We also prove the equivalence of the persistence with a return probability, a valuable tool for the argumentations.
We investigate the nonequilibrium phase transition in the disordered contact process in the presence of long-range spatial disorder correlations. These correlations greatly increase the probability for finding rare regions that are locally in the active phase while the bulk system is still in the inactive phase. Specifically, if the correlations decay as a power of the distance, the rare-region probability is a stretched exponential of the rare-region size rather than a simple exponential as is the case for uncorrelated disorder. As a result, the Griffiths singularities are enhanced and take a non-power-law form. The critical point itself is of infinite-randomness type but with critical exponent values that differ from the uncorrelated case. We report large-scale Monte Carlo simulations that verify and illustrate our theory. We also discuss generalizations to higher dimensions and applications to other systems such as the random transverse-field Ising model, itinerant magnets, and the superconductor-metal transition.
We study the distribution of dynamical quantities in various one-dimensional disordered models, the critical behavior of which is described by an infinite randomness fixed point. In the disordered contact process, the survival probability P(t) is found to show multiscaling in the critical point, meaning that P(t)=t-δ, where the (environment and time-dependent) exponent δ has a universal limit distribution when t→∞. The limit distribution is determined by the strong disorder renormalization group method analytically in the end point of a semi-infinite lattice, where it is found to be exponential, while, in the infinite system, conjectures on its limiting behaviors for small and large δ, which are based on numerical results, are formulated. By the same method, the survival probability in the problem of random walks in random environments is also shown to exhibit multiscaling with an exponential limit distribution. In addition to this, the (imaginary-time) spin-spin autocorrelation function of the random transverse-field Ising chain is found to have a form similar to that of survival probability of the contact process at the level of the renormalization approach. Consequently, a relationship between the corresponding limit distributions in the two problems can be established. Finally, the distribution of the spontaneous magnetization in this model is also discussed.