Dynamic critical behavior in superfluid systems is considered in the presence of external stirring and advecting processes. The latter are generated by means of the Gaussian random velocity ensemble with white-noise character in time variable and self-similar spatial dependence. The main focus of this work is to analyze an effect of compressible modes on the critical behavior. The model is formulated through stochastic Langevin equations, which are then recast into the Janssen-De Dominicis response formalism. Employing the field-theoretic perturbative renormalization group method we analyze large-scale properties of the model. Explicit calculations are performed to the leading one-loop approximation in the double (ɛ,y) expansion scheme, where ɛ is a deviation from the upper critical dimension d_{c}=4 and y describes a scaling property of the velocity ensemble. Altogether five distinct universality classes are expected to be macroscopically observable. In contrast to the incompressible case, we find that compressibility leads to an enhancement and stabilization of nontrivial asymptotic regimes.
Dynamic critical behavior in superfluid systems is considered in the presence of external stirring and advecting processes. The latter are generated by means of the Gaussian random velocity ensemble with white-noise character in time variable and self-similar spatial dependence. The main focus of this work is to analyze an effect of compressible modes on the critical behavior. The model is formulated through stochastic Langevin equations, which are then recast into the Janssen-De Dominicis response formalism. Employing the field-theoretic perturbative renormalization group method we analyze large-scale properties of the model. Explicit calculations are performed to the leading one-loop approximation in the double (ɛ,y) expansion scheme, where ɛ is a deviation from the upper critical dimension d_{c}=4 and y describes a scaling property of the velocity ensemble. Altogether five distinct universality classes are expected to be macroscopically observable. In contrast to the incompressible case, we find that compressibility leads to an enhancement and stabilization of nontrivial asymptotic regimes.
Stochastic dynamics of a nonconserved scalar order parameter near its critical point, subject to random stirring and mixing, is studied using the field theoretic renormalization group. The stirring and mixing are modelled by a random external Gaussian noise with the correlation function ∝δ(t−t′)k4−d−y and the divergence-free (due to incompressibility) velocity field, governed by the stochastic Navier--Stokes equation with a random Gaussian force with the correlation function ∝δ(t−t′)k4−d−y′. Depending on the relations between the exponents y and y′ and the space dimensionality d, the model reveals several types of scaling regimes. Some of them are well known (model A of equilibrium critical dynamics and linear passive scalar field advected by a random turbulent flow), but there are three new nonequilibrium regimes (universality classes) associated with new nontrivial fixed points of the renormalization group equations. The corresponding critical dimensions are calculated in the two-loop approximation (second order of the triple expansion in y, y′ and ε=4−d).
Universal behavior is a typical emergent feature of critical systems. A paramount model of the nonequilibrium critical behavior is the directed bond percolation process that exhibits an active-to-absorbing state phase transition in the vicinity of a percolation threshold. Fluctuations of the ambient environment might affect or destroy the universality properties completely. In this work, we assume that the random environment can be described by means of compressible velocity fluctuations. Using field-theoretic models and renormalization group methods, we investigate large-scale and long-time behavior. Altogether, 11 universality classes are found, out of which 4 are stable in the infrared limit and thus macroscopically accessible. In contrast to the model without velocity fluctuations, a possible candidate for a realistic three-dimensional case, a regime with relevant short-range noise, is identified. Depending on the dimensionality of space and the structure of the turbulent flow, we calculate critical exponents of the directed percolation process. In the limit of the purely transversal random force, critical exponents comply with the incompressible results obtained by previous authors. We have found intriguing nonuniversal behavior related to the mutual effect of compressibility and advection.
The critical behaviour of a system, subjected to strongly anisotropic turbulent mixing, is studied by means of the field-theoretic renormalization group. Specifically, the relaxational stochastic dynamics of a non-conserved multicomponent order parameter of the Ashkin–Teller–Potts model, coupled to a random velocity field with prescribed statistics, is considered. The velocity is taken to be Gaussian, white in time, with a correlation function of the form ∝δ( t − t ')/| k ⊥ | d − 1 + ξ , where k ⊥ is the component of the wave vector, perpendicular to the distinguished direction ('direction of the flow')—the d -dimensional generalization of the ensemble was introduced by Avellaneda and Majda (1990 Commun. Math. Phys. 131 381) within the context of passive scalar advection. This model can describe a rich class of physical situations. It is shown that, depending on the values of the parameters that define the self-interaction of the order parameter and the relation between the exponent ξ and the space dimension d , the system exhibits various types of large-scale scaling behaviour, associated with different infrared attractive fixed points of the renormalization-group equations. In addition to known asymptotic regimes (critical dynamics of the Potts model and passively advected field without self-interaction), the existence of a new, non-equilibrium and strongly anisotropic, type of critical behaviour (universality class) is established, and the corresponding critical dimensions are calculated to the leading order of the double expansion in ξ and ε = 6 − d (one-loop approximation). The scaling appears to be strongly anisotropic in the sense that the critical dimensions related to the directions parallel and perpendicular to the flow are essentially different.
The phase diagrams and phase transitions of bosons with short-ranged repulsive interactions moving in periodic and/or random external potentials at zero temperature are investigated with emphasis on the superfluid-insulator transition induced by varying a parameter such as the density. Bosons in periodic potentials (e.g., on a lattice) at T=0 exhibit two types of phases: a superfluid phase and Mott insulating phases characterized by integer (or commensurate) boson densities, by the existence of a gap for particle-hole excitations, and by zero compressibility. Generically, the superfluid onset transition in d dimensions from a Mott insulator to superfluidity is ``ideal,'' or mean field in character, but at special multicritical points with particle-hole symmetry it is in the universality class of the (d+1)-dimensional XY model. In the presence of disorder, a third, ``Bose glass'' phase exists. This phase is insulating because of the localization effects of the randomness and analogous to the Fermi glass phase of interacting fermions in a strongly disordered potential.The Bose glass phase is characterized by a finite compressibility, no gap, but an infinite superfluid susceptibility. In the presence of disorder the transition to superfluidity is argued to occur only from the Bose glass phase, and never directly from the Mott insulator. This zero-temperature superfluid-insulator transition is studied via generalizations of the Josephson scaling relation for the superfluid density at the ordinary \ensuremath{\lambda} transition, highlighting the crucial role of quantum fluctuations. The transition is found to have a dynamic critical exponent z exactly equal to d and correlation length and order-parameter correlation exponents \ensuremath{\nu} and \ensuremath{\eta} which satisfy the bounds \ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{\ge}2/d and \ensuremath{\eta}\ensuremath{\le}2-d, respectively. It is argued that the superfluid-insulator transition in the presence of disorder may have an upper critical dimension dc which is infinite, but a perturbative renormalization-group calculation wherein the critical exponents have mean-field values for weak disorder above d=4 is also discussed. Many of these conclusions are verified by explicit calculations on a model of one-dimensional bosons in the presence of both random and periodic potentials. The general results are applied to experiments on 4He absorbed in porous media such as Vycor. Some measurable properties of the superfluid onset are predicted exactly [e.g., the exponent x relating the \ensuremath{\lambda} transition temperature to the zero-temperature superfluid density is found to be d/2(d-1)], while stringent bounds are placed on others. Analysis of preliminary data is consistent with these predictions.
We review the progress made in dynamic bulk critical behaviour in equilibrium in the last 25 years since the review of Halperin and Hohenberg. We unify the presentation of the theoretical background by restricting ourselves to the field-theoretic renormalization group method. The main results obtained in the different universality classes are presented. This contains the critical dynamics near the gas–liquid transition in pure fluids (model H), the plait point and consolute point in mixtures (model H � ), the superfluid transition in 4 He (model F) and 4 He– 3 He mixtures (model F � ), the Curie point (model J) and Neel point (model G) in Heisenberg magnets and the superconducting transition. In comparison with experimental results, it became clear that in most cases one has to consider apart from the universal asymptotic critical behaviour also the non-universal effective behaviour. Either because it turned out to be inevitable due to a small dynamical transient exponent inhibiting the system to reach the asymptotics (e.g., at the superfluid transition) or because one is interested in the region further away from the phase transition like in pure fluids and mixtures at their gas–liquid or demixing transition. The calculation of the critical dynamics is adequate in most cases only in two-loop order. We review these results and present the solution to unreasonable features found for some models. Thus, we consider model C where relaxational and diffusive dynamics are coupled and the scaling properties and the limit to a purely relaxational model (model A) have not been understood. In general for models where the order parameter couples to other conserved densities time scale ratios between the kinetic coefficients of the order parameter and the conserved densities play an important role. Their fixed-point values and the approach to the fixed point are changed considerably in two-loop order compared to their values in one-loop order. These considerations are relevant for the explanation of the dynamical critical shape functions of systems such as superfluid helium (model F) and the isotropic antiferromagnet (model G). As far as possible, the comparison of results obtained by the renormalization group theory with numerical simulations has been made.
In papers devoted to superfluidity, the generally accepted statement that the dynamics of the corresponding phase transition is described by the stochastic model F or E can be frequently found. Nevertheless, the dynamical critical index has not been found even in the leading order of the perturbation theory. It is also unknown which model, E or F, in fact corresponds to this system. We use two different approaches to study this problem. First, we study the dynamics of the critical behavior in a neighborhood of the λ point using the renormalization group method based on a quantum microscopic model in the formalism of the time-dependent Green’s functions at a finite temperature. Second, we study the stochastic model F to find whether it is stable under compressibility effects. Both approaches lead to the same very unexpected result: the dynamics of the phase transition to the superfluid state are described by the stochastic model A with a known dynamical critical index.