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arXiv:1703.08679 · Physical Review Letters

Fractal Dimension of Interfaces in Edwards-Anderson and Long-range Ising Spin Glasses: Determining the Applicability of Different Theoretical Descriptions

Wenlong Wang, M A Moore, Helmut G. Katzgraber

Published Sep 7, 2017• 18 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The fractal dimension of excitations in glassy systems gives information on the critical dimension at which the droplet picture of spin glasses changes to a description based on replica symmetry breaking where the interfaces are space filling. Here, the fractal dimension of domain-wall interfaces is studied using the strong-disorder renormalization group method pioneered by Monthus [Fractals 23, 1550042 (2015)FRACEG0218-348X10.1142/S0218348X15500425] both for the Edwards-Anderson spin-glass model in up to 8 space dimensions, as well as for the one-dimensional long-ranged Ising spin-glass with power-law interactions. Analyzing the fractal dimension of domain walls, we find that replica symmetry is broken in high-enough space dimensions. Because our results for high-dimensional hypercubic lattices are limited by their small size, we have also studied the behavior of the one-dimensional long-range Ising spin-glass with power-law interactions. For the regime where the power of the decay of the spin-spin interactions with their separation distance corresponds to 6 and higher effective space dimensions, we find again the broken replica symmetry result of space filling excitations. This is not the case for smaller effective space dimensions. These results show that the dimensionality of the spin glass determines which theoretical description is appropriate. Our results will also be of relevance to the Gardner transition of structural glasses.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.119.100602

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•Jan 1, 2015•3 citations
The fractal dimension of excitations in glassy systems gives information on the critical dimension at which the droplet picture of spin glasses changes to a description based on replica symmetry breaking where the interfaces are space filling. Here, the fractal dimension of domain-wall interfaces is studied using the strong-disorder renormalization group method pioneered by Monthus [Fractals 23, 1550042 (2015)FRACEG0218-348X10.1142/S0218348X15500425] both for the Edwards-Anderson spin-glass model in up to 8 space dimensions, as well as for the one-dimensional long-ranged Ising spin-glass with power-law interactions. Analyzing the fractal dimension of domain walls, we find that replica symmetry is broken in high-enough space dimensions. Because our results for high-dimensional hypercubic lattices are limited by their small size, we have also studied the behavior of the one-dimensional long-range Ising spin-glass with power-law interactions. For the regime where the power of the decay of the spin-spin interactions with their separation distance corresponds to 6 and higher effective space dimensions, we find again the broken replica symmetry result of space filling excitations. This is not the case for smaller effective space dimensions. These results show that the dimensionality of the spin glass determines which theoretical description is appropriate. Our results will also be of relevance to the Gardner transition of structural glasses.
The one-dimensional Ising spin-glass model with power-law long-range interactions is a useful proxy model for studying spin glasses in higher space dimensions and for finding the dimension at which the spin-glass state changes from having broken replica symmetry to that of droplet behavior. To this end we have calculated the exponent that describes the difference in free energy between periodic and antiperiodic boundary conditions. Numerical work is done to support some of the assumptions made in the calculations and to determine the behavior of the interface free-energy exponent of the power law of the interactions. Our numerical results for the interface free-energy exponent are badly affected by finite-size problems.
We have studied the diluted Heisenberg spin glass model in a three-component random field for the commonly used one-dimensional long-range model where the probability that two spins separated by a distance r interact with one another falls as 1/r^{2σ}, for two values of σ, 0.75 and 0.85. No de Almeida-Thouless line is expected at these σ values. The spin glass correlation length ξ_{SG} varies with the random field as expected from the Imry-Ma argument and the droplet scaling picture of spin glasses. However, when ξ_{SG} becomes comparable to the system size L, there are departures which we attribute to the features deriving from the replica symmetry breaking picture of spin glasses. For the case σ=0.85 these features go away for system sizes with L>L^{*}, where L^{*} is large (≈4000-8000 lattice spacings). In the case of σ=0.75 we have been unable to study large enough systems to determine its value of L^{*}. We sketch a renormalization group scenario to explain how these features could arise. In this scenario finite size effects on the droplet scaling picture in low-dimensional spin glasses produce some aspects of Parisi's replica symmetry breaking theory of the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model.
We have studied the diluted Heisenberg spin glass model in a 3-component random field for the commonly-used one-dimensional long-range model where the probability that two spins separated by a distance rrr interact with one another falls as 1/r2σ1/r^{2 σ}1/r2σ, for two values of σσσ, 0.750.750.75 and 0.850.850.85. No de Almeida-Thouless line is expected at these σσσ values. The spin glass correlation length ξSGξ_{\text{SG}}ξSG​ varies with the random field as expected from the Imry-Ma argument and the droplet scaling picture of spin glasses. However, when ξSGξ_{\text{SG}}ξSG​ becomes comparable to the system size LLL, there are departures which we attribute to the features deriving from the TNT picture of spin glasses. For the case σ=0.85σ=0.85σ=0.85 these features go away for system sizes with L>L∗L >L^*L>L∗, where L∗L^*L∗ is large (≈4000−8000\approx 4000-8000≈4000−8000 lattice spacings). In the case of σ=0.75σ= 0.75σ=0.75 we have been unable to study large enough systems to determine its value of L∗L^*L∗. We sketch a renormalization group scenario to explain how these features could arise. On this scenario finite size effects on the droplet scaling picture in low-dimensional spin glasses produce TNT features and some aspects of Parisi's replica symmetry breaking theory of the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model.
We present a large-scale simulation of the ground state interface properties of the diluted Sherrington-Kirkpatrick spin glass of Gaussian disorder for a broad range of the bond occupation probability ppp using the strong disorder renormalization group and the population annealing Monte Carlo methods. The model is studied in the framework of the diluted one-dimensional Kotliar-Anderson-Stein spin glass with power-law interactions in the mean-field regime. We find that the interface is space-filling independent of ppp, i.e., the fractal dimension ds=1{d}_{s}=1ds​=1. The stiffness exponent $\ensuremath{\theta}$ is likely also independent of ppp, despite that the energy finite-size correction exponent $\ensuremath{\omega}$ varies with ppp as recently found. The energy finite-size scaling is also analyzed and compared with that of the $\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}J$ disorder, finding that the thermodynamic energy is universal in both ppp and the disorder, and the exponent $\ensuremath{\omega}$ varies with ppp but is universal in the disorder.
We present a collection of simulations of the Edwards–Anderson lattice spin glass at T=0 to elucidate the nature of low-energy excitations over a range of dimensions that reach from physically realizable systems to the mean-field limit. Using heuristic methods, we sample the ground states of instances to determine their energies while eliciting excitations through manipulating boundary conditions. We exploit the universality of the phase diagram of bond-diluted lattices to make such a study in higher dimensions computationally feasible. As a result, we obtain a variety of accurate exponents for domain wall stiffness and finite-size corrections, which allow us to examine their dimensional behavior and their connection with predictions from mean-field theory. We also provide an experimentally testable prediction for the thermal-to-percolative crossover exponent in dilute lattice Ising spin glasses.
Despite decades of effort, our understanding of low-temperature phase of spin glass models with short-range interactions remains incomplete. Replica symmetry breaking (RSB) theory, based on the solution of the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick mean-field model, predicts many pure states; meanwhile, competing theories of short-range systems, such as the droplet picture, predict a single pair of pure states related by time-reversal symmetry, analogously to the ferromagnet. Since RSB certainly holds for the mean-field (infinite-range) model, it is interesting to study short-range models in high dimensions to observe whether RSB also holds here; however, computer simulations of short-range models in high dimensions are difficult because the number of spins to equilibrate grows so rapidly with the linear size of the system.A relatively recent idea which has been fruitful is to instead study one-dimensional models with long-range (power-law) interactions, which are argued to have the same critical behavior as corresponding short-range models in high dimensions, but for which simulations for a range of sizes (crucial for finite-size scaling analysis) are feasible. For these one-dimensional long-range (1DLR) models, we fill in a previously unexplored region of parameter space where the interactions become sufficiently long-range that they must be rescaled with the system size to maintain the thermodynamic limit. We find strong evidence that detailed behavior of the 1DLR models everywhere in this "nonextensive regime" is identical to that of the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model, lending support to a recent conjecture.In an attempt to distinguish the RSB and droplet pictures, we study recently-proposed observables based on the statistics of individual disorder samples, rather than simply averaging over the disorder as is most frequently done in previous studies. We compare Monte Carlo results for 1DLR models which are proxies for short-range models in 3, 4, and 10 dimensions with previously-obtained data for the 3D and 4D short-range models and the SK model. For one statistic, which is expected to sharply distinguish between the two pictures in the thermodynamic limit, we find that larger system sizes than those currently feasible to simulate are needed to obtain an unambiguous result. We also find that two other recently-proposed statistics, the median of the cumulative overlap distribution and the "typical" overlap distribution, are not particularly helpful in distinguishing between the RSB and droplet pictures.If there are many pure states in the spin-glass phase, we need to carry out some sort of statistical average over them to obtain the thermodynamics. One such prescription for doing this is called the "metastate." Motivated by similarities between the average over pure states specified by the metastate theory and that presumably generated by the nonequilibrium dynamics, we study a 1DLR model which is a proxy for a short-range model in d=8d=8d=8 dimensions and measure the evolution of dynamical correlations. We find that the spatial decay of the correlations at distances less than the dynamical correlation length xi(t)\\xi(t)xi(t) agrees quantitatively with the predictions of the metastate theory, evaluated according to the RSB picture. We also compute the dynamic exponent defined by xi(t)proptot1/z(T)\\xi(t) \\propto t^{1/z(T)}xi(t)proptot1/z(T) and find that it is compatible with the mean-field value of the critical dynamical exponent for short-range spin glasses.Finally, we present a unified view of finite-size scaling (FSS) in dimensions ddd above the upper critical dimension dud_udu​, for both free and periodic boundary conditions. For d>dud>d_ud>du​, a dangerous irrelevant variable is responsible for both the violation of hyperscaling and the violation of "standard" FSS. We find that the modified hyperscaling proposed to allow for this applies only to veck=vec0\\vec{k}=\\vec{0}veck=vec0 fluctuations, while standard FSS applies to veckneqvec0\\vec{k}\\neq\\vec{0}veckneqvec0 fluctuations. Hence the exponent eta\\etaeta describing the power-law decay of correlations at criticality is unambiguously eta=0\\eta=0eta=0. With free boundary conditions, the finite-size "shift" is greater than the rounding. Nonetheless, using T−TLT-T_LT−TL​, where TLT_LTL​ is the finite-size pseudocritical temperature, as the scaling variable, the data do collapse onto a scaling form that includes the behavior both at TLT_LTL​, where the susceptibility chi\\chichi diverges like Ld/2L^{d/2}Ld/2, and the bulk TcT_cTc​, where it diverges like L2L^2L2. We support these claims with data from large-scale simulations of the five-dimensional Ising model.