Quenched disorder: Demixing thermal and disorder fluctuations

Abstract

We present a finite-size scaling study of the phase transition in the two-dimensional Potts model modified by random bond disorder, in which the average is taken over quantities calculated at quasicritical temperatures of individual disorder configurations. We used the recently proposed equilibrium-like invaded cluster algorithm, which allows us to examine separately the fluctuations in the thermodynamical ensemble from the fluctuations induced by changing the disorder configuration. We point out the crucial role of the spatial inhomogeneities on all scales for the critical behavior of the system. These inhomogeneities are formed by "dressing" of the disorder via critical correlations and are demonstrated to exist for any system size despite the critical fluctuations in thermodynamical ensemble. Such inhomogeneities were previously not thought to be relevant in disorder-altered classical systems when critical temperature is finite. However, we confirm that only by averaging at quasicritical temperatures of each disorder configuration is the thermal critical exponent y(τ) not obscured by the influence of the aforementioned spatial inhomogeneities.