The asymptotical behavior of physical quantities, like the order parameter, the replicon, and longitudinal masses, is studied around the zero-field spin-glass transition point when a small external magnetic field is applied. An effective field theory to model this asymptotics contains a small perturbation in its Lagrangian which breaks the zero-field symmetry. A first-order renormalization group supplemented by perturbational results provides the scaling functions. The perturbative zero of the scaling function for the replicon mass defines a generic Almeida-Thouless surface stemming from the zero-field fixed point.
The asymptotical behavior of physical quantities, like the order parameter, the replicon, and longitudinal masses, is studied around the zero-field spin-glass transition point when a small external magnetic field is applied. An effective field theory to model this asymptotics contains a small perturbation in its Lagrangian which breaks the zero-field symmetry. A first-order renormalization group supplemented by perturbational results provides the scaling functions. The perturbative zero of the scaling function for the replicon mass defines a generic Almeida-Thouless surface stemming from the zero-field fixed point.
We study the transition of short-range Ising spin glasses in a magnetic field, within a general replica symmetric field theory, which contains three masses and eight cubic couplings, that is defined in terms of the fields representing the replicon, anomalous, and longitudinal modes. We discuss the symmetry of the theory in the limit of replica number $\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{n}0,$ and consider the regular case where the longitudinal and anomalous masses remain degenerate. The spin-glass transitions in zero and nonzero fields are analyzed in a common framework. The mean-field treatment shows the usual results, that is a transition in zero field, where all the modes become critical, and a transition in nonzero field, at the de Almeida--Thouless (AT) line, with only the replicon mode critical. Renormalization group methods are used to study the critical behavior, to order $\ensuremath{\varepsilon}=6\ensuremath{-}d.$ In the general theory we find a stable fixed point associated with a spin-glass transition in a zero field. This fixed point becomes unstable in the presence of a small magnetic field, and we calculate crossover exponents, which we relate to zero-field critical exponents. In a finite magnetic field, we find no physical stable fixed point to describe the AT transition, in agreement with previous results of other authors.
We use the generic replica symmetric cubic field theory to study the transition of short-range Ising spin glasses in a magnetic field around the upper critical dimension. A novel fixed point is found from the application of the renormalization group. In the spin-glass limit, this fixed point governs the critical behavior of a class of systems characterized by a single cubic parameter. For this universality class, the spin-glass susceptibility diverges at criticality, whereas the longitudinal mode remains massive. The third mode, however, behaves unusually. The physical consequences of this unusual behavior are discussed, and a comparison with the conventional de Almeida-Thouless scenario is presented.
Critical point scaling in a field H applies for the limits $t\ensuremath{\rightarrow}0$ (where $t=T/{T}_{c}\ensuremath{-}1)$ and $H\ensuremath{\rightarrow}0$ but with the ratio $R=t/{H}^{2/\ensuremath{\Delta}}$ finite. $\ensuremath{\Delta}$ is a critical exponent of the zero-field transition. We study the replicon correlation length $\ensuremath{\xi}$ and from it the crossover scaling function f(R) defined via $1/(\ensuremath{\xi}{H}^{4/(d+2\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\eta})})\ensuremath{\sim}f(R)$. We have calculated analytically f(R) for the mean-field limit of the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model. In dimension d=3, we have determined the exponents and the critical scaling function f(R) within two versions of the Migdal-Kadanoff (MK) renormalization group procedure. One of the MK versions gives results for f(R) in d=3 in reasonable agreement with those of the Monte Carlo simulations at the values of R for which they can be compared. If there were a de Almeida-Thouless (AT) line for $d\ensuremath{\le}6$, it would appear as a zero of the function f(R) at some negative value of R, but there is no evidence for such behavior. This is consistent with the arguments that there should be no AT line for $d\ensuremath{\le}6$, which we review.
We study in Ising spin glasses the finite-size effects near the spin-glass transition in zero field and at the de Almeida-Thouless transition in a field by Monte Carlo methods and by analytical approximations. In zero field, the finite-size scaling function associated with the spin-glass susceptibility of the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick mean-field spin-glass model is of the same form as that of one-dimensional spin-glass models with power-law long-range interactions in the regime where they can be a proxy for the Edwards-Anderson short-range spin-glass model above the upper critical dimension. We also calculate a simple analytical approximation for the spin-glass susceptibility crossover function. The behavior of the spin-glass susceptibility near the de Almeida-Thouless transition line has also been studied, but here we have only been able to obtain analytically its behavior in the asymptotic limit above and below the transition. We have also simulated the one-dimensional system in a field in the non-mean-field regime to illustrate that when the Imry-Ma droplet length scale exceeds the system size one can then be erroneously lead to conclude that there is a de Almeida-Thouless transition even though it is absent.
The de Almeida-Thouless (AT) line in Ising spin glasses is the phase boundary in the temperature T and magnetic field h plane below which replica symmetry is broken. Using perturbative renormalization group (RG) methods, we show that, when the dimension d of space is just above six, there is a multicritical point (MCP) on the AT line, which separates a low-field regime, in which the critical exponents have mean-field values, from a high-field regime, where the RG flows run away to infinite coupling strength; as d approaches six from above, the MCP approaches the zero-field critical point exponentially in 1/(d-6). Thus, on the AT line, perturbation theory for the critical properties breaks down at a sufficiently large magnetic field even above 6 dimensions, as well as for all nonzero fields when d≤6, as was known previously. We calculate the exponents at the MCP to first order in ϵ=d-6>0. The fate of the MCP as d increases from just above six to infinity is not known.
We present a scaling theory for the low-temperature phase transition of the Ising spin glass in a transverse magnetic field (\ensuremath{\Gamma}). The theory provides relations and bounds on some critical exponents, which are supported by results from actual calculations. A renormalization-group analysis of the zero-temperature transition in the presence of a longitudinal symmetry-breaking field enables us to estimate the critical exponents \ensuremath{\beta} and \ensuremath{\gamma}, associated with the Edwards-Anderson order parameter and the nonlinear susceptibility, respectively. We have found no indications of the transition being of first order.