Using ground state computations, we study the transition from a spin glass to a ferromagnet in 3D spin glasses when changing the mean value of the spin-spin interaction. We find good evidence for replica symmetry breaking up until the critical value where ferromagnetic ordering sets in, and no ferromagnetic spin glass phase. This phase diagram is in conflict with the droplet/scaling and mean field theories of spin glasses. We also find that the exponents of the second order ferromagnetic transition do not depend on the microscopic Hamiltonian, suggesting universality of this transition.
Many results of the mean-field theory of spin-glasses violate simple scaling laws, including the magnetic field dependence of the transition lines, crossover effects of random anisotropy, and critical behavior in the ordered phase. These violations arise from two dangerously irrelevant variables. Below eight dimensions some mean-field exponents change and at
d=6 scaling is restored. Below
d=6 all scaling laws should be valid implying that the critical properties of real spin-glasses should be simpler than in mean-field theory. Experimental consequences are discussed.
The stability of the spin-glass phase against a magnetic field is studied in the three- and four-dimensional Edwards-Anderson Ising spin glasses. Effective couplings J(eff) and effective fields H(eff) associated with length scale L are measured by a numerical domain-wall renormalization-group method. The results obtained by scaling analysis of the data strongly indicate the existence of a crossover length beyond which the spin-glass order is destroyed by field H. The crossover length well obeys a power law of H which diverges as H --> 0 but remains finite for any nonzero H, implying that the spin-glass phase is absent even in an infinitesimal field. These results are well consistent with the droplet theory for short-range spin glasses.