Abstract We study in detail the dynamic scaling of the three-dimensional (3D) Ising model driven through its critical point on finite-sized lattices. We show explicitly that while finite-size scaling (FSS) at fixed driving rates and finite-time scaling (FTS) on fixed lattice sizes are satisfied for one set of all four observables we measure in their respective scaling regimes, they can be violated for the other set of the observables even in the same regimes. The different behaviors of the two sets of the observables indicate that the usual critical fluctuations can be divided into the so-called phases fluctuations and magnitude fluctuations. The self-similarity of criticality can also be divided into intrinsic and extrinsic self-similarities. The numerical results show that the phases fluctuations lead to the different behaviors while breaking the extrinsic self-similarity gives rise to the violations of the scalings. The set of the observables that violate the scalings is further divided into a primary observable and a secondary observable. Their different leading behaviors enable us to identify four breaking-of-extrinsic-self-similarity exponents for rectifying the violations of either FSS or FTS in either heating or cooling. Crossovers from the extrinsic-self-similarity-breaking-controlled regimes to the usual FSS or FTS regimes are also discussed. In addition, qualitatively different behaviors of the magnitude fluctuations in cooling and in heating and their origin are revealed. Moreover, both FTS and FSS are good down to quite low temperatures in cooling with the extrinsic self-similarity. This indicates that phase ordering can only have an effect at even lower temperatures. Besides, from the quality of curve collapses, we find that the 3D dynamic critical exponent z in heating and in cooling appears identical but the two-dimensional ones different. Our results demonstrate that new exponents are generally required for scaling in the whole driven process near criticality once the lattice size is taken into account. This opens a new door in critical phenomena and suggest that much is yet to be explored in driven nonequilibrium critical phenomena.
We study in detail the dynamic scaling of the three-dimensional Ising model under cooling on finite-sized lattices subject to an externally applied field whose magnitude fixes a scaled variable pertinent to it. Three different protocols, protocols A, B, and C, in which the field is applied either only below or only above the critical point besides during the whole process, respectively, are investigated. Anomalous finite-time scaling (FTS) are found in protocols B and C on a large lattice only and in protocol A when extrinsic self-similarity is broken. However, these anomalous scalings in cooling can be rectified unexpectedly by the recently found breaking-of-extrinsic-self-similarity exponent of FTS in zero-field heating, except in the case of protocol B in which a reduced zero-field cooling exponent is additionally required. This provides a distinctive source to the breaking-of-extrinsic-self-similarity exponents and thus confirms their validity. The different scaling behaviors of the three different protocols also shows that the so-called phases fluctuations at and above the critical point are more important than those below it. The previously found qualitative difference between zero-field heating and zero-field cooling is essentially the symmetry of the system states, namely whether they are ordered or disordered. We also confirm that there exists a revised FTS regime-the regime in which both the lattice sizes and driving rates are indispensable-in between the two end regimes of FTS and finite-size scaling even in the presence of the field. Its crossover to the end FTS regime is responsible for the anomalous scalings of the large lattice size in protocols B and C. However, our results show that the revised FTS is never needed for the usual order parameter in which no absolute value is taken. In addition, the end FTS regime in cooling is found to exhibit a special feature different from that in heating. Our results demonstrate that new exponents are needed for scaling in the whole driven process even in the case in which an external field is applied.
We consider the sample to sample fluctuations that occur in the value of a thermodynamic quantity
P in an ensemble of finite systems with quenched disorder, at equilibrium. The variance of
P,
VP, which characterizes these fluctuations is calculated as a function of the systems' linear size
l, focusing on the behavior at the critical point. The specific model considered is the bond-disordered Ashkin-Teller model on a square lattice [Phys. Rev. 64, 178 (1943)]. Using extensive Monte Carlo simulations, several bond-disordered Ashkin-Teller models were examined, including the bond-disordered Ising model and the bond-disordered four-state Potts model. It was found that far from criticality all thermodynamic quantities which were examined (energy, magnetization, specific heat, susceptibility) are strongly self-averaging, that is ${V}_{P}\ensuremath{\sim}{l}^{\ensuremath{-}d}$ (where
d=2 is the dimension). At criticality though, the results indicate that the magnetization
M and the susceptibility $\ensuremath{\chi}$ are non-self-averaging, i.e., $\frac{{V}_{\ensuremath{\chi}}}{{\ensuremath{\chi}}^{2}}, \frac{{V}_{M}}{{M}^{2}}\ensuremath{\nrightarrow}0$. The energy
E at criticality is clearly weakly self-averaging, that is ${V}_{E}\ensuremath{\sim}{l}^{\ensuremath{-}{y}_{v}}$ with
0<yv<d. Less conclusively, and possibly only as a transient behavior, the specific heat too is found to be weakly self-averaging. A phenomenological theory of finite size scaling for disordered systems is developed, based on physical considerations similar to those leading to the Harris criterion. Its main prediction is that when the specific heat exponent $\ensuremath{\alpha}<0$ ($\ensuremath{\alpha}$ of the disordered model) then, for a quantity
P which scales as ${l}^{\ensuremath{\rho}}$ at criticality, its variance
VP will scale asymptotically as ${l}^{2\ensuremath{\rho}+\frac{\ensuremath{\alpha}}{\ensuremath{\nu}}}$. The theory is not applicable in the asymptotic limit ($l\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$) to the bond-disordered Ashkin-Teller model where $\frac{\ensuremath{\alpha}}{\ensuremath{\nu}}={0}_{+}$. Nonetheless in the accessible range of lattice sizes we found very good agreement between the theory and the data for ${V}_{\ensuremath{\chi}}$ and
VE. The theory may also be compatible with the data for the variance of the magnetization
VM and the variance of the specific heat
VC, but evidence for this is less convincing.
Quantum Phase Transitions Quantum phase transitions, in contrast to temperature-driven critical phenomena, occur due to a competition between different parameters describing the basic interactions of the system. Their specific feature is the quantum character of the critical fluctuations. This implies, through the uncertainty principle, that energy fluctuations and time are coupled. Then at zero temperature time plays a crucial and fundamental role, the static properties being entangled with the dynamics (Continentino, 1994a; Sondhi et al ., 1997; Sachdev, 1999). In this book we are mainly interested in quantum phase transitions that occur in electronic many-body systems and how scaling concepts can be useful to understand their properties close to these transitions (Continentino, 1994a). Even though a similar approach has been used in the case of interacting bosons (Fisher et al ., 1989) the fermionic problem has its own idiosyncrasies and difficulties. For example, there is no natural order parameter associated with the localisation transition in the electronic case, while bosons at zero temperature are either localised or superfluid so that the superfluid order parameter can be used to distinguish between both phases. If the results of the study of quantum phase transitions were restricted to zero temperature, this would be an interesting but purely academic area of research. What is really exciting about this subject is the effect of quantum critical points (QCP) in the finite temperature phase diagram of actual physical systems, even far away from the QCP (Freitas, 2015). As we will show, there is a special line in this phase diagram, the quantum critical trajectory , where the temperature dependence of the thermodynamic and transport properties is governed by the quantum critical exponents, i.e. those associated with the QCP. This and the observed crossover effects induced by temperature in the non-critical side of the phase diagram of a material with a QCP are sufficient to make the study of quantum phase transitions an inevitable subject. We start this chapter by introducing the scaling theory of quantum critical phenomena, since scaling concepts are used throughout this book.
We explore the critical properties of the recently discovered finite-time dynamical phase transition in the nonequilibrium relaxation of Ising magnets after a temperature quench. The transition is characterized by a sudden switch in the relaxation dynamics and it occurs at a sharp critical time. While previous works have focused either on mean-field interactions or on investigating the critical time, we analyze the critical fluctuations at the phase transition in the nearest-neighbor Ising model on a square lattice using Monte Carlo simulations. By means of a finite-size scaling analysis, we extract the critical exponents for the transition. In two spatial dimensions, we find that the exponents are consistent with those of the two-dimensional Ising universality class when the system is initially in the vicinity of the critical point. For initial temperatures below the critical one, however, the critical exponents differ from the Ising-exponents, indicating a distinct dynamical critical phenomenon.
The Kibble-Zurek (KZ) mechanism has been applied to a variety of systems ranging from low-temperature Bose-Einstein condensations to grand unification scales in particle physics and cosmology and from classical phase transitions to quantum phase transitions. Here, we show that finite-time scaling (FTS) provides a detailed improved understanding of the mechanism. In particular, the finite time scale, which is introduced by the external driving (or quenching) and results in FTS, is the origin of the division of the adiabatic regimes from the impulse regime in the KZ mechanism. The origin of the KZ scaling for the defect density, generated during the driving through a critical point, is not that the correlation length ceases growing in the nonadiabatic impulse regime, but rather, is that it is taken over by the effective finite length scale corresponding to the finite time scale. We also show that FTS accounts well for and improves the scaling ansatz proposed recently by Liu, Polkovnikov, and Sandvik, [Phys. Rev. B 89, 054307 (2014)]. Further, we show that their universal power-law scaling form applies only to some observables in cooling but not to heating. Even in cooling, it is invalid either when an appropriate external field is present. However, this finite-time-finite-size scaling calls for caution in application of FTS. Detailed scaling behaviors of the FTS and finite-size scaling, along with their crossover, are explicitly demonstrated, with the dynamic critical exponent
z being estimated for two- and three-dimensional Ising models under the usual Metropolis dynamics. These values of
z are found to give rise to better data collapses than the extant values do in most cases but take on different values in heating and cooling in both two- and three-dimensional spaces.