We investigate the role of a magnetic field on the aging properties of spin glasses, focusing both on ac susceptibility measurements with an additional field variation and on thermoremanent magnetization (TRM) relaxation (to which the field variation is inherent). We propose a scaling of the TRM decay curves for various amplitudes of the magnetic field. Regarding aging as a random walk in a set of traps, we analyze the transient modification of the dynamics after a field change as twofold: an average reduction of relaxation times, well described by a Zeeman reduction of the energy barriers (hard traps), together with an ``emptying out'' of some other relaxation modes (fragile traps) corresponding to a partial quench effect. The fragile traps are associated with the longest time scales, that is to processes involving a large number of spins. A quantitative analysis of the results allows us to estimate a typical number of spins involved in both types of traps, as well as to discuss the growth of the energy barriers as a function of the number of spins.
The discovery of dynamic memory effects in the magnetization decays of spin glasses in 1983 marked a turning point in the study of the highly disordered spin glass state. Detailed studies of the memory effects have led to much progress in understanding the qualitative features of the phase space. Even so, the exact nature of the magnetization decay functions has remained elusive, causing confusion. In this Letter, we report strong evidence that the thermoremanent magnetization decays scale with the waiting time t(w). By employing a series of cooling protocols, we demonstrate that the rate at which the sample is cooled to the measuring temperature plays a major role in the determination of scaling. As the effective cooling time t(eff)(c) decreases, t/t(w) scaling improves and for t(eff)(c)<20 s we find almost perfect t/t(w) scaling, i.e., full aging.
Aging of two-dimensional (2D) Ising spin glasses with short-range interactions
Rb2${\mathrm{Cu}}_{1\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}\mathit{x}}$
CoxF4 (
Tc=0) is studied in the critical regime via the low-frequency ac susceptibility and via the dc magnetization for x=0.22 and 0.33. After quenching to low temperatures, slow logarithmic relaxation is observed for both the in-phase and out-of-phase ac susceptibilities. Using the droplet scaling model, the spin-glass correlation length R is concluded to increase after a temperature quench as R\ensuremath{\propto}(lnt${)}^{1/\mathrm{\ensuremath{\psi}}}$, with t in units of some microscopic time. The exponent \ensuremath{\psi}=1.0\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.1 compares with recent theoretical results and numerical simulations for 2D short-range Ising spin glasses. The waiting-time dependence found for the field-cooled and zero-field-cooled dc magnetizations points to a markedly slower crossover from the quasiequilibrium to the nonequilibrium regime than in 3D. From experiments with different cooling histories, finally, the equilibrium spin-glass state is inferred to be strongly dependent on the temperature.
The low temperature dynamics of the three-dimensional Ising spin-glass in zero field with a discrete bond distribution is investigated via MC simulations. The thermoremanent magnetization is found to decay algebraically and the temperature dependent exponents agree very well with the experimentally determined values. The nonequilibrium autocorrelation function C(t, t w ) shows a crossover at the waiting (or aging) time t w from algebraic quasiequilibrium decay for times t<<t w to another, faster algebraic decay for t>>t w with an exponent similar to one for the remanent magnetization.
By means of Monte Carlo simulations on the three-dimensional Ising spin-glass model, we have studied aging phenomena with various temperature(
T)-change protocols. Particularly, a
T-shift protocol, in which a system is first quenched to and aged for a period
tw1 at a temperature
T1, and subsequently aged at a new temperature
T2 is closely investigated. Most importantly, the mean size of domains, which is extracted from the replica-overlap function, was found to grow monotonically without any appreciable decrease by the
T-change. We also found the relaxation of energy density and spin auto-correlation function during the
T-shift process can be explained within the following picture: the dynamics finally crossovers to an isothermal aging of
T2 at around
t2≃tw1(eff) after the
T-change, where
tw1(eff) is an effective waiting time related with
tw1, but in the transient regime
t2<tw1(eff), adjustment of the population of thermally active droplets from that at
T1 to
T2 takes place very slowly. Implications of the results on aging phenomena in other
T-change protocols such as
T-cycling and continuous
T-change with an intermittent stop observed by simulations as well as experiments are discussed.
Growth of the zero-field-cooled magnetization (ZFCM) under continuous heating with and without an intermittent stop(s) is studied on Ising spin glasses both experimentally and numerically. Despite the large difference between time scales of the experiment and the simulation, the ZFCM behavior observed in the two systems can be quantitatively interpreted by means of a common set of the scaling expressions based on the droplet picture. The results strongly suggest that the spin-glass coherence length reached by the laboratory time scales is about a hundred lattice spacings or less. Within this length scale no signature of the chaos effect (rejuvenation) has been found in the ZFCM measured.