As an analysis of equilibrium phase transitions, the nonequilibrium relaxation method is extended to the spin glass (SG) transition. The $\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}J$ Ising SG model is analyzed for three-dimensional (cubic) lattices up to the linear size of
L=127 and for four-dimensional (hypercubic) lattice up to
L=41. These sizes of systems are quite large as compared with those calculated, so far, by equilibrium simulations. As a dynamical order parameter, we calculate the clone correlation function (CCF) ${Q(t,t}_{\mathrm{w}})\ensuremath{\equiv}[〈{S}_{i}^{(1)}{(t+t}_{\mathrm{w}}){S}_{i}^{(2)}{(t+t}_{\mathrm{w}}){〉}^{\mathrm{F}}],$ which is a spin correlation of two replicas produced after the waiting time
tw from a simple starting state. It is found that the CCF shows an exponential decay in the paramagnetic phase, and a power-law decay after aginglike development $(t\ensuremath{\gg}{t}_{\mathrm{w}})$ in the SG phase. This provides a reliable upper bound of the transition temperature
Tg. It is also found that a scaling relation, ${Q(t,t}_{\mathrm{w}}{)=t}_{\mathrm{w}}^{\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{q}}\overline{q}{(t/t}_{\mathrm{w}}),$ holds just around the transition point providing the lower bound of
Tg. Together with these two bounds, we propose a new dynamical way for the estimation of
Tg from much larger systems. In the SG phase, the power-law behavior of the CCF for $t\ensuremath{\gg}{t}_{\mathrm{w}}$ suggests that the SG phase in short-range Ising models has a rugged phase space.
We have studied the relaxation of the n-particle momentum distribution function fn(pn; t) and the corresponding n-particle Ursell function Un(pn; t) for both an isolated infinite chain of coupled harmonic oscillators and an infinite chain of coupled harmonic oscillators in contact with a heat bath. The time development of the Ursell function gives us the desired information on the decay of initial momentum correlations. For both of these systems we have found the asymptotic relaxation laws fn(pn; t) − fn(0)(pn) ∼ f1(p; t) − f1(0)(p) and Un(pn; t)→0 as [f1(p; t) − f1(0)(p)]n, where the superscript zero denotes the equilibrium distribution. The momentum correlation function Un(pn; t) thus goes to zero (no correlations) much more rapidly than the n-particle distribution function approaches its equilibrium value. These results are identical with those obtained by us previously for initially correlated, noninteracting many-particle systems in contact with a heat bath and by Glauber for the relaxation of spins in an Ising lattice. It is interesting to speculate on the reason for this identity of results in such apparently different relaxation models, but no answer can be provided as yet.