Among the many non-equilibrium processes encountered in nature we deal with two different but related aspects. One is the non-equilibrium relaxation process that is at the origin of \'aging phenomena••, and the other one is a non-equilibrium phase transition, called ••dynamic phase transition••. One of the main purposes of our research is to explore more realistic situations than studied previously. Indeed, in the study of aging phenomena certain kinds of disorder effects are considered, and we introduce the ••surface•• as a spatial boundary to the system undergoing the dynamic phase transition. In order to observe these processes as clearly as possible, we study in both cases simple spin systems. Using Monte Carlo simulations we first investigate aging in three-dimensional Ising spin glasses as well as in two-dimensional Ising models with disorder quenched to low temperatures. The time-dependent dynamical correlation length L(t) is determined numerically and the scaling behavior of various two-time quantities as a function of L(t)/L(s) is discussed where t and s are two different times. For disordered Ising models deviations of L(t) from algebraic growth law show up. The generalized scaling forms as a function of L(t)/L(s) reveal a generic simple aging scenario for Ising spin glasses as well as for disordered Ising ferromagnets. We also study the local critical phenomena at a dynamic phase transition by means of numerical simulations of kinetic Ising models with surfaces subjected to a periodic oscillating field. We examine layer-dependent quantities, such as the period-averaged magnetization per layer Q(z) and the layer susceptibility ¥ö(z), and determine local critical exponents through finite size scaling. Both for two and three dimensions, we find that the values of the surface exponents differ from those of the equilibrium critical surface. It is revealed that the surface phase diagram of the non-equilibrium system is not identical to that of the equilibrium system in three dimensions.
Among the many non-equilibrium processes encountered in nature we deal with two different but related aspects. One is the non-equilibrium relaxation process that is at the origin of 'aging phenomena••, and the other one is a non-equilibrium phase transition, called ••dynamic phase transition••. One of the main purposes of our research is to explore more realistic situations than studied previously. Indeed, in the study of aging phenomena certain kinds of disorder effects are considered, and we introduce the ••surface•• as a spatial boundary to the system undergoing the dynamic phase transition. In order to observe these processes as clearly as possible, we study in both cases simple spin systems. Using Monte Carlo simulations we first investigate aging in three-dimensional Ising spin glasses as well as in two-dimensional Ising models with disorder quenched to low temperatures. The time-dependent dynamical correlation length L(t) is determined numerically and the scaling behavior of various two-time quantities as a function of L(t)/L(s) is discussed where t and s are two different times. For disordered Ising models deviations of L(t) from algebraic growth law show up. The generalized scaling forms as a function of L(t)/L(s) reveal a generic simple aging scenario for Ising spin glasses as well as for disordered Ising ferromagnets. We also study the local critical phenomena at a dynamic phase transition by means of numerical simulations of kinetic Ising models with surfaces subjected to a periodic oscillating field. We examine layer-dependent quantities, such as the period-averaged magnetization per layer Q(z) and the layer susceptibility ¥ö(z), and determine local critical exponents through finite size scaling. Both for two and three dimensions, we find that the values of the surface exponents differ from those of the equilibrium critical surface. It is revealed that the surface phase diagram of the non-equilibrium system is not identical to that of the equilibrium system in three dimensions.
The theory of statistical mechanics provides a powerful conceptual framework within which the relevant (macroscopic) features of systems at equilibrium can be described. As there is currently no equivalent capable of encompassing the much richer class of non-equilibrium phenomena, research in this direction proceeds mainly on an instance-by-instance basis. The aim of this Thesis is to describe in some detail three such attempts, which involve different dynamical aspects of classical and quantum systems. As summarised below, each of the last three Chapters of this document delves into one of these different topics, while Chapter 2 provides a brief introduction on the study of non-equilibrium dynamics. In Chapter 3 we investigate the purely relaxational dynamics of classical critical ferromagnetic systems in the proximity of surfaces, paying particular attention to the effects that the latter induce on the early stages of the evolution following an abrupt change in the temperature of the sample. When the latter ends close enough to the critical value which separates the paramagnetic from the ferromagnetic phase, it effectively introduces a temporal boundary which can be treated as if it were a surface. Within this picture, we highlight the emergence of novel effects near the effective edge formed by the intersection of the two spatial and temporal boundaries. Our findings are apparently in disagreement with previous predictions which were based on the assumption that the presence of such an edge would not affect the scaling behaviour of observables; in order to explain this discrepancy, we propose an alternative for the original power-counting argument which, at least, correctly predicts the emergence of novel field-theoretical divergences in our one-loop calculations. We show that said singularities are associated with the scaling at the edge. Moreover, by encoding our findings in a boundary renormalisation group framework, we argue that the new predicted behaviour represents a universal feature associated to the short-distance expansion of the order parameter of the transition near the edge; we also calculate explicitly its anomalous dimension at the first-order in a dimensional expansion. As a qualitative feature, this anomalous dimension depends on the type of phase transition occurring at the surface. We exploit this fact in order to provide numerical support to our predictions via Monte Carlo simulations of the dynamical behaviour of a three-dimensional Ising model. The main results reported in Chap. 3 have appeared in Ref. [1]. In Chapter 4 we revisit the Euclidean mapping to imaginary times which has been recently proposed [2, 3] as an alternative for approaching the problem of quantum dynamics following a quench. This is expected to allow one to reformulate the original problem as a static one confined in a film geometry. We show that this interpretation actually holds only if the initial state of the dynamics is pure. Statistical mixtures, instead, intertwine the effects due to the two boundaries, which therefore cannot be regarded as being independent. We emphasize that, although the aforementioned reinterpretation as a confined static problem fails, one is still able, in principle, to write down and solve the corresponding equations. We also discuss in some detail the relation between this approach and the real-time field-theoretical one which makes use of the two-time Keldysh contour. For this purpose, we study the analytical structure of relevant observables — such as correlation functions — in the complex plane of times, identifying a subdivision of this domain into several sectors which depend on the ordering of the imaginary parts of the involved time coordinates. Within each of these subdomains, the analytic continuation to the real axis provides in principle a different result. This feature allows one to reconstruct from the Euclidean formalism all possible non-time-ordered functions, which in particular include all those which can be calculated via the Keldysh two-time formalism. Moreover, we give a prescription on how to retrieve response functions, discussing some simple examples and rationalising some recent numerical data obtained for one of these observables in a one-dimensional quantum Ising chain [4]. We also highlight the emergence of a light-cone effect fairly similar to the one previously found for correlation functions [2], which therefore provides further confirmation to the fact that information travels across the system in the form of the entanglement of quasi-particles produced by the quenching procedure. We have reported part of this analysis in Ref. [5]. Chapter 5 presents part of our recent work on effective relaxation in quantum systems following a quench and on the observed prethermalisation. We analyse the effects caused by the introduction of a long-range integrability-breaking interaction in the early stages of the dynamics of an otherwise integrable quantum spin chain following a quench in the magnetic field. By employing a suitable transformation, we redefine the theory in terms of a fully-connected model of hard-core bosons, which allows us to exploit the (generically) low density of excitations for rendering our model exactly solvable (in a numerical sense, i.e., by numerically diagonalising an exact matrix). We verify that, indeed, as long as the parameters of the quench are not too close to the critical point, the low-density approximation captures the dynamical features of the elementary operators, highlighting the appearance of marked plateaux in their dynamics, which we reinterpret as the emergence of a prethermal regime in the original model. As expected, the latter behaviour is reflected also on extensive observables which can be constructed as appropriate combinations of the mode populations. For these quantities, the typical approach to the quasi-stationary value is algebraic with exponent a ≈ 3, independently of the size of the system, the strength of the interaction and the amplitude of the magnetic field (as long as it is kept far from the critical point). The plateaux mentioned above last until a recurrence time — which can be approximately identified with tR ≈ N/2 for single modes and t′R ≈ N/4 for extensive quantities — after which quantum oscillations due to the finite size of the chain reappear. Our procedure allows us to shed some light over prethermal features without having to considerably limit the size of the system, which we can choose to be quite large, as we discuss in Ref. [6].
The crossover between quasiequilibrium and nonequilibrium spin-glass dynamics has been studied in Monte Carlo simulations of two- and three-dimensional short-range Ising spin-glass systems. The spin system was quenched in zero field to a low temperature T. After equilibrating for a time tw, a weak magnetic field was applied and the time dependence of the magnetization M(t) and the spin autocorrelation function q(t) was studied. Our results show that the relaxation rate S(t)=\ensuremath{\partial}M(t)/\ensuremath{\partial} log10(t) exhibits a maximum at t\ensuremath{\approxeq}tw. If the temperature is lowered or raised, immediately prior to the field application, the apparent age (ta) of the system, as defined by the maximum in relaxation rate, is shifted to longer or shorter time scales, respectively. No significant differences between the aging behavior in two and three dimensions are found. The relation \ensuremath{\chi}(t)=[1-q(t)]/T holds only for short time scales (t\ensuremath{\ll}tw), clear deviations are found at longer time scales (t>tw). Since this relation should according to the fluctuation-dissipation theorem hold for a system in equilibrium, this result is interpreted as an indication of a crossover between equilibrium and nonequilibrium dynamics. Our results are qualitatively in agreement with experiments as well as with theoretical models for the nonequilibrium spin-glass dynamics.
Aging phenomena of short-range Ising spin glass models have been investigated using Monte Carlo simulations. It is found that in the low-temperature spin-glass phase the mean domain size exhibits a crossover from a power-law growth associated with the critical fluctuation at the transition temperature to slower growth inherent in the low-temperature phase. The temperature dependence of the growth law of the domain size can be almost explained by this crossover. We also find that the spin-autocorrelation function in the quasi-equilibrium regime follows the expected scaling behavior from the droplet theory expressed in terms of the mean domain size and a characteristic length scale of droplet excitations. Spin glasses (SG) exhibit characteristic slow dynamics below the SG transition temperature. 1)-3) Recently such slow dynamics, in particular aging phenomena, has been much attractive both in experimental and theoretical studies. Several attempts have been made so far to explain the slow dynamics. There are mainly two distinct
We investigate the non-equilibrium critical evolution of statistical systems and describe of its some features, such as aging and violation of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem. We consider some theoretical results of computations for universal quantities that have been obtained in recent years, such as the exponents determining the scaling behavior of dynamic response and correlation functions and the fluctuation-dissipation ratio, associated with the non-equilibrium critical dynamics. We derive our original Monte Carlo simulation results for 3D pure and diluted Ising models with Glauber and Metropolis dynamics. For these models, we analyze the influence of critical fluctuations, different non-equilibrium initial states, and the presence of nonmagnetic impurities on the two-time dependence of correlation and response functions on characteristic time variables, such as waiting time |tw| and time of observation |t−tw| with |t>tw|. We discuss the obtained values of the non-equilibrium exponents for the autocorrelation and response functions and values of the universal long-time limit of the fluctuation-dissipation ratio |X∞|. Our simulation results demonstrate that the insertion of disorder leads to new values of |X∞| with |Xdiluted∞>Xpure∞|.
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.
A summary of my research activity is presented in this thesis. The first chapter starts with a short presentation of the known critical properties of the pure Potts model, mainly in two dimensions. The influence of disorder coupled to the energy density is then discussed in the general context of temperature-driven phase transitions. A physical explanation for the smoothing of the transition, due to Imry and Wortis, is presented and then applied to explain the phase diagram of the homogeneous random two and three-dimensional Potts models. It is then extended to the Potts model on irregular graphs and with layered randomness. In the third section, the critical properties at the random fixed point are examined in the light of the series expansion obtained by Renormalisation Group. The multifractal spectrum of scaling dimensions is discussed in the two-dimensional case and a new symmetry is proposed. The predictions of conformal invariance for profiles and correlation functions are compared with numerical data for the two-dimensional random Potts model in strip or square geometries. Finally, the geometrical properties of interfaces induced by symmetry-breaking boundary conditions are analysed in the context of the recent Stochastic Schramm-Loewner Evolution theory. The second chapter is devoted to the aging properties of homogeneous or frustrated Potts models submitted to a quench below or at their critical temperature. The scaling theory of two-time functions, as well as the more recent Local Scale Invariance theory , are presented in the first section. The violation of the Fluctuation-Dissipation theorem is described and the interpretation of the so-called Fluctuation-Dissipation Ratio as an out-of-equilibrium effective temperature is discussed. These ideas are applied to different spin models. First, one-dimensional systems with the Ising symmetry are considered. The equivalence of the KDH model with a gas of immobile particles subjected to pair-annihilation is exploited to obtain new analytical results. The question of the universality of dynamical exponents and ratios is then addressed in the two-dimensional case. Several lattices and several models in different universality classes are compared. A new model with the same symmetry as the three-state Potts model but with an irreversible dynamics is introduced. Its phase diagram in the steady state is determined and its aging properties on the critical line are studied. Finally, the aging of the Fully-Frustrated Ising and XY models are examined. Emphasis is put on the presence of logarithmic corrections due to the existence of topological defects. Two applications of the Jarzynski relation to the Potts model are presented at the end of the chapter. A short third chapter introduces the numerical simulations employed to analyse different set of experimental data. Monte Carlo simulations were used to reproduced some magnetic phase transitions in layered nanostructures. Spectroscopic data of surface reconstructions were compared to the electronic band structure obtained by computing the first eigenvectors of the Bloch-Schrödinger equation with a projective technique combined with a multiscale approach.