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arXiv:cond-mat/0003226 · Physical review. E, Statistical physics, plasmas, fluids, and related interdisciplinary topics

Replica-symmetry-breaking transition in finite-size simulations

Koji Hukushima, Hikaru Kawamura

Published Sep 1, 2000• 24 citations
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Abstract

Finite-size effects in the mean-field Ising spin glass and the mean-field three-state Potts glass are investigated by Monte Carlo simulations. In the thermodynamic limit, each model is known to exhibit a continuous phase transition into the ordered state with a full and a one-step replica-symmetry breaking (RSB), respectively. In the Ising case, the Binder parameter g calculated for various finite sizes remains positive at any temperature and crosses at the transition point, while in the Potts case g develops a negative dip without showing a crossing in the g>0 region. By contrast, non-self-averaging parameters always remain positive and show a clear crossing at the transition temperature in both cases. Our finding suggests that care should be taken in interpreting the numerical data of the Binder parameter, particularly when the system exhibits a one-step-like RSB.

DOI
10.1103/physreve.62.3360

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Finite-size effects in the mean-field Ising spin glass and the mean-field three-state Potts glass are investigated by Monte Carlo simulations. In the thermodynamic limit, each model is known to exhibit a continuous phase transition into the ordered state with a full and a one-step replica-symmetry breaking (RSB), respectively. In the Ising case, the Binder parameter g calculated for various finite sizes remains positive at any temperature and crosses at the transition point, while in the Potts case g develops a negative dip without showing a crossing in the g>0 region. By contrast, non-self-averaging parameters always remain positive and show a clear crossing at the transition temperature in both cases. Our finding suggests that care should be taken in interpreting the numerical data of the Binder parameter, particularly when the system exhibits a one-step-like RSB.
We studied the phase transition of the $\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}J$ Heisenberg model with and without a random anisotropy on four-dimensional lattice $L\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}L\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}L\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}(L+1)(L<~9).$ We showed that the Binder parameters g(L,T)g(L,T)g(L,T)'s for different sizes do not cross even when the anisotropy is present. On the contrary, when a strong anisotropy exists, g(L,T)g(L,T)g(L,T) exhibits a steep negative dip near the spin-glass phase-transition temperature TSG{T}_{\mathrm{SG}}TSG​ similarly to the p-state infinite-range Potts glass model with p> 3,p>~3,p> 3, in which the one-step replica-symmetry breaking (RSB) occurs. We speculated that a one-step RSB-like state occurs below TSG,{T}_{\mathrm{SG}},TSG​, which breaks the usual crossing behavior of g(L,T).g(L,T).g(L,T).
We investigate the balanced M=4M=4M=4, p=4p=4p=4 spin-glass model for a one-dimensional long-range proxy for the finite dimensional short-range ppp-spin glass model to examine the nature of the glass transition beyond mean-field theory. We perform large-scale Monte Carlo equilibrated simulations for both fully connected and power-law diluted versions of the model. The critical temperatures extracted from the finite-size scaling (FSS) analysis of spin-glass susceptibility are in good agreement with theoretical predictions for σ=0,0.25σ= 0, 0.25σ=0,0.25, and 0.55. For these values of the long-range exponent σσσ (which is the power of the decrease of the interactions between the spins with their separation), one might have expected that mean-field theory would provide a good description of the system. However, the spin-overlap distribution and the value of the λλλ-parameter do not provide numerical evidence for a one-step replica symmetry breaking (1RSB) phase transition. Instead, our results indicate a direct transition from the paramagnetic state to a full replica symmetry broken phase, with a renormalized value of λ≡ω2/ω1<1λ\equiv ω_2/ω_1 < 1λ≡ω2​/ω1​<1 suggesting a continuous FRSB transition, despite this ratio being equal to 2 at mean-field level. A value of λ>1λ> 1λ>1 is required for the discontinuous 1RSB transition. We argue that strong finite-size effects and closely spaced transition temperatures remove the expected 1RSB transition for the system sizes which we can study. For values of the exponent σ=0.85σ= 0.85σ=0.85, which roughly corresponds to a three dimensional system, we find that the renormalized value of λλλ is again less than 1, with no signs of either the 1RSB transition or the continuous FRSB transition, suggesting that the Kauzmann temperature TKT_KTK​ in three dimensions might be zero and the complete absence of phase transitions in structural glasses.
We use Monte Carlo simulations to study the static and dynamical properties of a Potts glass with infinite-range Gaussian-distributed exchange interactions for a broad range of temperature and system size up to N = 2560 spins. The results are compatible with a critical divergence of the relaxation time τ at the theoretically predicted dynamical transition temperature T D , τ ∝ ( T − T D ) −Δ with Δ ≈ 2. For finite N a further power law at T = T D is found, τ( T = T D ) ∝ N z ⋆ with z ⋆ ≈ 1.5 and for T > T D dynamical finite-size scaling seems to hold. The order parameter distribution P ( q ) is qualitatively compatible with the scenario of a first-order glass transition as predicted from one-step replica symmetry breaking schemes.
Despite decades of effort, our understanding of low-temperature phase of spin glass models with short-range interactions remains incomplete. Replica symmetry breaking (RSB) theory, based on the solution of the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick mean-field model, predicts many pure states; meanwhile, competing theories of short-range systems, such as the droplet picture, predict a single pair of pure states related by time-reversal symmetry, analogously to the ferromagnet. Since RSB certainly holds for the mean-field (infinite-range) model, it is interesting to study short-range models in high dimensions to observe whether RSB also holds here; however, computer simulations of short-range models in high dimensions are difficult because the number of spins to equilibrate grows so rapidly with the linear size of the system.A relatively recent idea which has been fruitful is to instead study one-dimensional models with long-range (power-law) interactions, which are argued to have the same critical behavior as corresponding short-range models in high dimensions, but for which simulations for a range of sizes (crucial for finite-size scaling analysis) are feasible. For these one-dimensional long-range (1DLR) models, we fill in a previously unexplored region of parameter space where the interactions become sufficiently long-range that they must be rescaled with the system size to maintain the thermodynamic limit. We find strong evidence that detailed behavior of the 1DLR models everywhere in this "nonextensive regime" is identical to that of the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model, lending support to a recent conjecture.In an attempt to distinguish the RSB and droplet pictures, we study recently-proposed observables based on the statistics of individual disorder samples, rather than simply averaging over the disorder as is most frequently done in previous studies. We compare Monte Carlo results for 1DLR models which are proxies for short-range models in 3, 4, and 10 dimensions with previously-obtained data for the 3D and 4D short-range models and the SK model. For one statistic, which is expected to sharply distinguish between the two pictures in the thermodynamic limit, we find that larger system sizes than those currently feasible to simulate are needed to obtain an unambiguous result. We also find that two other recently-proposed statistics, the median of the cumulative overlap distribution and the "typical" overlap distribution, are not particularly helpful in distinguishing between the RSB and droplet pictures.If there are many pure states in the spin-glass phase, we need to carry out some sort of statistical average over them to obtain the thermodynamics. One such prescription for doing this is called the "metastate." Motivated by similarities between the average over pure states specified by the metastate theory and that presumably generated by the nonequilibrium dynamics, we study a 1DLR model which is a proxy for a short-range model in d=8d=8d=8 dimensions and measure the evolution of dynamical correlations. We find that the spatial decay of the correlations at distances less than the dynamical correlation length xi(t)\\xi(t)xi(t) agrees quantitatively with the predictions of the metastate theory, evaluated according to the RSB picture. We also compute the dynamic exponent defined by xi(t)proptot1/z(T)\\xi(t) \\propto t^{1/z(T)}xi(t)proptot1/z(T) and find that it is compatible with the mean-field value of the critical dynamical exponent for short-range spin glasses.Finally, we present a unified view of finite-size scaling (FSS) in dimensions ddd above the upper critical dimension dud_udu​, for both free and periodic boundary conditions. For d>dud>d_ud>du​, a dangerous irrelevant variable is responsible for both the violation of hyperscaling and the violation of "standard" FSS. We find that the modified hyperscaling proposed to allow for this applies only to veck=vec0\\vec{k}=\\vec{0}veck=vec0 fluctuations, while standard FSS applies to veckneqvec0\\vec{k}\\neq\\vec{0}veckneqvec0 fluctuations. Hence the exponent eta\\etaeta describing the power-law decay of correlations at criticality is unambiguously eta=0\\eta=0eta=0. With free boundary conditions, the finite-size "shift" is greater than the rounding. Nonetheless, using T−TLT-T_LT−TL​, where TLT_LTL​ is the finite-size pseudocritical temperature, as the scaling variable, the data do collapse onto a scaling form that includes the behavior both at TLT_LTL​, where the susceptibility chi\\chichi diverges like Ld/2L^{d/2}Ld/2, and the bulk TcT_cTc​, where it diverges like L2L^2L2. We support these claims with data from large-scale simulations of the five-dimensional Ising model.
We investigate by means of Monte Carlo simulations the fully connected p -state Potts model for different system sizes in order to see how the static and dynamic properties of a finite model compare with the, exactly known, behaviour of the system in the thermodynamic limit. Using p = 10 we are able to study the equilibrium dynamics for system sizes as large as N = 2560. We find that the static quantities, such as the energy, the entropy, the spin glass susceptibility as well as the distribution of the order parameter P ( q ) show very strong finite-size effects. From P ( q ) we calculate the fourth-order cumulant g 4 ( N , T ) and the Guerra parameter G ( N , T ) and show that these quantities cannot be used to locate the static transition temperature for the system sizes investigated. Also the spin-autocorrelation function C ( t ) shows strong finite-size effects in that it does not show a plateau even for temperatures around the dynamical critical temperature T D . We show that the dependence on N and T of the α-relaxation time can be understood by means of a dynamical finite-size scaling ansatz. C ( t ) does not obey the time-temperature superposition principle for temperatures around T D , but does so for significantly lower T . Finally we study the relaxation dynamics of the individual spins and show that their dependence on time depends strongly on the chosen spin, i.e. that the system is dynamically very heterogeneous, which explains the non-exponentiality of C ( t ).
The replica-symmetry-breaking (RSB) solution of the infinite-range Ising spin glass in the presence of a transverse field is obtained. The quenched free energy and the phase boundary of the glass transition temperature versus the transverse field are calculated at first-step RSB without using the static approximation. We demonstrate that replica symmetry (RS) has to be broken in the spin-glass phase by comparing the free energies of the RSB and RS solutions. No evidence is found to support an intermediate spin-glass phase with replica symmetry.