Modified Finite-Size Scaling

A. P. Young

Yasuyuki Kato, Naoki Kawashima

The validity of modified finite-size scaling above the upper critical dimension is demonstrated for the quantum phase transition whose dynamical critical exponent is z=2. We consider the N -component Bose-Hubbard model, which is exactly solvable and exhibits mean-field type critical phenomena in the large- N limit. The modified finite-size scaling holds exactly in that limit. However, the usual procedure, taking the large system-size limit with fixed temperature, does not lead to the expected (and correct) mean-field critical behavior because of the limited range of applicability of the finite-size scaling form. By quantum Monte Carlo simulation, it is shown that the modified finite-size scaling holds in the case of N=1.

Malte Henkel

S. Lübeck, H. K. Janssen

We consider analytically as well as numerically the finite-size scaling behavior in the stationary state near the nonequilibrium phase transition of directed percolation within the mean field regime, i.e., above the upper critical dimension. Analogous to equilibrium, usual finite-size scaling is valid below the upper critical dimension, whereas it fails above. Performing a momentum analysis of associated path integrals we derive modified finite-size scaling forms of the order parameter and its higher moments. The results are confirmed by numerical simulations of corresponding high-dimensional lattice models.

Matthew Wittmann, A. P. Young

We present a unified view of finite-size scaling (FSS) in dimension d above the upper critical dimension, for both free and periodic boundary conditions. We find that the modified FSS proposed some time ago to allow for violation of hyperscaling due to a dangerous irrelevant variable applies only to k=0 fluctuations, and "standard" FSS applies to k≠0 fluctuations. Hence the exponent η describing power-law decay of correlations at criticality is unambiguously η=0. With free boundary conditions, the finite-size "shift" is greater than the rounding. Nonetheless, using T-T(L), where T(L) is the finite-size pseudocritical temperature, rather than T-T(c), as the scaling variable, the data do collapse onto a scaling form that includes the behavior both at T(L), where the susceptibility χ diverges like L(d/2), and at the bulk T(c), where it diverges like L(2). These claims are supported by large-scale simulations on the five-dimensional Ising model.