Relaxation of metastable states in finite mean-field kinetic Ising systems

Abstract

The authors present simulational data and a theoretical analysis of the stochastic order parameter relaxation in finite mean-field Ising systems. Contrary to infinite mean-field systems the finite ones exhibit qualitatively the same kind of relaxation as systems with finite interaction ranges. They explore the equivalence of different versions of the kinetic Ising model in the mean-field case and study the lifetime of metastable states. They focus on the vicinity of the mean-field spinodal and present a phenomenological finite-size-scaling theory for the lifetime of the metastable state.