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arXiv:cond-mat/0408064 · Physical Review E

Pair contact process with diffusion: Failure of master equation field theory

Hans-Karl Janssen, Frédéric van Wijland, Olivier Deloubrière, Uwe Claus Täuber

Published Nov 17, 2004• 34 citations
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Abstract

We demonstrate that the "microscopic" field theory representation, directly derived from the corresponding master equation, fails to adequately capture the continuous nonequilibrium phase transition of the pair contact process with diffusion (PCPD). The ensuing renormalization group (RG) flow equations do not allow for a stable fixed point in the parameter region that is accessible by the physical initial conditions. There exists a stable RG fixed point outside this regime, but the resulting scaling exponents, in conjunction with the predicted particle anticorrelations at the critical point, would be in contradiction with the positivity of the equal-time mean-square particle number fluctuations. We conclude that a more coarse-grained effective field theory approach is required to elucidate the critical properties of the PCPD.

DOI
10.1103/physreve.70.056114

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The pair contact process with diffusion (PCPD) is studied with a standard Monte Carlo approach and with simulations at fixed densities. A standard analysis of the simulation results, based on the particle densities or on the pair densities, yields inconsistent estimates for the critical exponents. However, if a well-chosen linear combination of the particle and pair densities is used, leading corrections can be suppressed, and consistent estimates for the independent critical exponents delta=0.16(2) , beta=0.28(2) , and z=1.58 are obtained. Since these estimates are also consistent with their values in directed percolation (DP), we conclude that the PCPD falls in the same universality class as DP.

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We demonstrate that the "microscopic" field theory representation, directly derived from the corresponding master equation, fails to adequately capture the continuous nonequilibrium phase transition of the pair contact process with diffusion (PCPD). The ensuing renormalization group (RG) flow equations do not allow for a stable fixed point in the parameter region that is accessible by the physical initial conditions. There exists a stable RG fixed point outside this regime, but the resulting scaling exponents, in conjunction with the predicted particle anticorrelations at the critical point, would be in contradiction with the positivity of the equal-time mean-square particle number fluctuations. We conclude that a more coarse-grained effective field theory approach is required to elucidate the critical properties of the PCPD.
The contact process with diffusion (PCPD) defined by the binary reactions B+B→B+B+B, B+B→∅ and diffusive particle spreading exhibits an unusual active to absorbing phase transition whose universality class has long been disputed. Multiple studies have indicated that an explicit account of particle pair degrees of freedom may be required to properly capture this system's effective long-time, large-scale behavior. We introduce a two-species representation for the PCPD in which single particles B and particle pairs A are dynamically coupled according to the stochastic reaction processes B+B→A, A→A+B, A→∅, and A→B+B, with each particle type diffusing independently. Mean-field analysis reveals that the phase transition of this model is driven by competition and balance between the two species. We employ Monte Carlo simulations in one, two, and three dimensions to demonstrate that this model consistently captures the pertinent features of the PCPD. In the inactive phase, A particles rapidly go extinct, effectively leaving the B species to undergo pure diffusion-limited pair annihilation kinetics B+B→∅. At criticality, both A and B densities decay with the same exponents (within numerical errors) as the corresponding order parameters of the original PCPD, and display mean-field scaling above the upper critical dimension d_{c}=2. In one dimension, the critical exponents for the B species obtained from seed simulations also agree well with previously reported exponent value ranges. We demonstrate that the scaling properties of consecutive particle pairs in the PCPD are identical with that of the A species in the coupled model. This two-species picture resolves the conceptual difficulty for seed simulations in the original PCPD and naturally introduces multiple length scales and timescales to the system, which are also the origin of strong corrections to scaling. The extracted moment ratios from our simulations indicate that our model displays the same temporal crossover behavior as the PCPD, which further corroborates its full dynamical equivalence with our coupled model.
We study the nonequilibrium critical behavior of the pair contact process with diffusion (PCPD) by means of nonperturbative functional renormalization group techniques. We show that usual perturbation theory fails because the effective potential develops a nonanalyticity at a finite length scale: Perturbatively forbidden terms are dynamically generated and the flow can be continued once they are taken into account. Our results suggest that the critical behavior of PCPD can be either in the directed percolation or in a different (conjugated) universality class.
We investigate the one-dimensional pair contact process with diffusion (PCPD) by extensive Monte Carlo simulations, mainly focusing on the critical density decay exponent δ. To obtain an accurate estimate of δ, we first find the strength of corrections to scaling using the recently introduced method [S.-C. Park. J. Korean Phys. Soc. 62, 469 (2013)KPSJAS0374-488410.3938/jkps.62.469]. For small diffusion rate (d≤0.5), the leading corrections-to-scaling term is found to be ∼t^{-0.15}, whereas for large diffusion rate (d=0.95) it is found to be ∼t^{-0.5}. After finding the strength of corrections to scaling, effective exponents are systematically analyzed to conclude that the value of critical decay exponent δ is 0.173(3) irrespective of d. This value should be compared with the critical decay exponent of the directed percolation, 0.1595. In addition, we study two types of crossover. At d=0, the phase boundary is discontinuous and the crossover from the pair contact process to the PCPD is found to be described by the crossover exponent ϕ=2.6(1). We claim that the discontinuity of the phase boundary cannot be consistent with the theoretical argument supporting the hypothesis that the PCPD should belong to the DP. At d=1, the crossover from the mean field PCPD to the PCPD is described by ϕ=2 which is argued to be exact.
The phase transition of the one-dimensional, diffusive pair contact process (PCPD) is investigated by N cluster mean-field approximations and high precision simulations. The N=3,4 cluster approximations exhibit smooth transition line to absorbing state by varying the diffusion rate D with beta_2=2 mean-field order parameter exponent of the pair density. This contradicts with former N=2 results, where two different mean-field behavior was found along the transition line. Extensive dynamical simulations on L=10^5 lattices give estimates for the order parameter exponents of the particles for 0.05 <= D <= 0.7. These data can support former two distinct class findings. However the gap between low and high D exponents is narrower than estimated previously and the possibility for interpreting numerical data as a single class behavior with exponents alpha=0.21(1), beta=0.41(1) assuming logarithmic corrections is shown. Finite size scaling and cluster simulation results are also presented.
Crossover behaviors from the pair contact process with diffusion (PCPD) and the driven PCPD (DPCPD) to the directed percolation (DP) are studied in one dimension by introducing a single particle annihilation and/or branching dynamics. The crossover exponents phi are estimated numerically as 1/phi approximately 0.58 +/- 0.03 for the PCPD and 1/phi approximately 0.49+/-0.02 for the DPCPD. Nontriviality of the PCPD crossover exponent strongly supports the non-DP nature of the PCPD critical scaling, which is further evidenced by the anomalous critical amplitude scaling near the PCPD point. In addition, we find that the DPCPD crossover is consistent with the mean field prediction of the tricritical DP class as expected.
The pair contact process with diffusion (PCPD) is studied with a standard Monte Carlo approach and with simulations at fixed densities. A standard analysis of the simulation results, based on the particle densities or on the pair densities, yields inconsistent estimates for the critical exponents. However, if a well-chosen linear combination of the particle and pair densities is used, leading corrections can be suppressed, and consistent estimates for the independent critical exponents delta=0.16(2) , beta=0.28(2) , and z=1.58 are obtained. Since these estimates are also consistent with their values in directed percolation (DP), we conclude that the PCPD falls in the same universality class as DP.