Abstract We present computer simulations on a class of percolative systems that forms a new universality class. We determine the universal critical exponents for this new class from simulations on lattices consisting of up to one billion sites. These new percolative systems differ from standard systems in that once a cluster breaks off the lattice spanning cluster, its sites become protected and cannot be removed. We demonstrate that despite this restriction on the evolution of isolated clusters, the scaling relationships between the critical exponents remain valid. Protected percolation closely mimics the situation in heavily-doped quantum critical systems where isolated magnetic clusters are protected from Kondo screening. We show that protected percolation in three dimensions violates the Harris criterion, explaining why universal exponents for quantum phase transitions have been elusive.
Abstract We present computer simulations on a class of percolative systems that forms a new universality class. We determine the universal critical exponents for this new class from simulations on lattices consisting of up to one billion sites. These new percolative systems differ from standard systems in that once a cluster breaks off the lattice spanning cluster, its sites become protected and cannot be removed. We demonstrate that despite this restriction on the evolution of isolated clusters, the scaling relationships between the critical exponents remain valid. Protected percolation closely mimics the situation in heavily-doped quantum critical systems where isolated magnetic clusters are protected from Kondo screening. We show that protected percolation in three dimensions violates the Harris criterion, explaining why universal exponents for quantum phase transitions have been elusive.
We describe a new universality class - dubbed protected percolation - that we show to be relevant to quantum critical systems. Percolation theory describes phase transitions where long-range order is lost when parts of a system become disconnected from other parts; in the vicinity of the transition, critical behavior is observed, captured by universal power laws. Protected percolation has the added restriction that only sites from the system spanning connection can be removed. We developed a new technique to simulate protected percolation, and we used it to determine the critical exponents of this new universality class in 2, 3, and 4 dimensions. We relate the exponents analytically to those of standard percolation. The Harris criterion predicts whether a phase transition is stable against impurities. We prove that protected percolation violates this criterion in 3 dimensions and higher, implying that impurities result in the loss of universal behavior in systems governed by protected percolation. We investigated the change in critical exponents for various types of impurities, focusing on the case for three dimensions where protected percolation models quantum critical systems. We detail how our simulations can be used for direct comparison to experimental results on such quantum critical systems.
We present the results of a percolation-like model that has been restricted compared to standard percolation models in the sense that we do not allow finite sized clusters to break up once they have formed. We calculate the critical exponents for this model and derive relationships between these exponents and those of standard percolation models. We argue that this restricted model represents a new universality class that is directly relevant to the critical physics as observed in quantum critical systems, and we describe under what conditions our percolation results can be applied to the observed temperature and field dependencies of the specific heat and susceptibility in such systems.
In two space dimensions, the percolation point of the pure-site clusters of the Ising model coincides with the critical point Tc of the thermal transition and the percolation exponents belong to a special universality class. By introducing a bond probability pB<1, the corresponding site-bond clusters keep on percolating at Tc and the exponents do not change, until ${p}_{B}{=p}_{\mathrm{CK}}=1\ensuremath{-}\mathrm{exp}(\ensuremath{-}2J/kT):$ for this special expression of the bond weight the critical percolation exponents switch to the two-dimensional Ising universality class. We show here that the result is valid for a wide class of bidimensional models with a continuous magnetization transition: there is a critical bond probability pc such that, for any pB>pc, the onset of percolation of the site-bond clusters coincides with the critical point of the thermal transition. The percolation exponents are the same for pc<pB<1 but, for pB=pc, they suddenly change to the thermal exponents, so that the corresponding clusters are critical droplets of the phase transition. Our result is based on Monte Carlo simulations of various systems near criticality.
We investigate a class of dynamic percolation models on a lattice, in which connections are added and removed by a set of local stochastic rules. In particular, the removal of any connection that can result in one connected cluster becoming two (or more) separate clusters is strictly forbidden. These models include and are inspired by a model for local quantum error correction for a toric code studied by Chirame, et al., PRX Quantum 6, 030363 (2025), who identified a phase transition with first-order characteristics, such as bistability and a discontinuous order parameter. We show numerically that this transition is a hybrid percolation transition (HPT), having characteristics of a continuous percolation transition such as diverging critical clusters while at the same transition having discontinuities like a first-order transition. We then modify this model to be fully isotropic, showing that the HPT remains. In both of these models, the steady state on one side of the HPT is an absorbing state; by turning on additional isotropic local stochastic moves, we remove the absorbing state and strongly suppress or remove the first-order transition, leaving an apparently continuous percolation transition. Curiously, the numerically-observed percolation critical exponents do not change significantly between the models with hybrid transitions and the model with an apparently continuous transition. These exponents are significantly different from known percolation transitions, indicating that this may be a new universality class.
Abstract Universality, encompassing critical exponents, scaling functions, and dimensionless quantities, is fundamental to phase transition theory. In finite systems, universal behaviors are also expected to emerge at the pseudocritical point. Focusing on two-dimensional percolation, we show that the size distribution of the largest cluster asymptotically approaches to a Gumbel form in the subcritical phase, a Gaussian form in the supercritical phase, and transitions within the critical finite-size scaling window. Numerical results indicate that, at consistently defined pseudocritical points, this distribution exhibits a universal form across various lattices and percolation models (bond or site), within error bars, yet differs from the distribution at the critical point. The critical polynomial, universally zero for two-dimensional percolation at the critical point, becomes nonzero at pseudocritical points. Nevertheless, numerical evidence suggests that the critical polynomial, along with other dimensionless quantities such as wrapping probabilities and Binder cumulants, assumes fixed values at the pseudocritical point that are independent of the percolation type (bond or site) but vary with lattice structures. These findings imply that while strict universality breaks down at the pseudocritical point, certain extreme-value statistics and dimensionless quantities exhibit quasi-universality, revealing a subtle connection between scaling behaviors at critical and pseudocritical points.
We present a new family of percolation models. We show, using theory and computer simulations, that these represent a new universality class. Interestingly, systems in this class appear to violate the Harris criterion, making model systems within these class ideal systems for studying the influence of disorder on critical behavior. We argue that such percolative systems have already been realized in practice in strongly correlated electron systems that have been driven to the quantum critical point by means of chemical substitution.