Spin-glass dynamics in the presence of a magnetic field: exploration of microscopic properties

Abstract

The synergy between experiment, theory, and simulations enables a microscopic analysis of spin-glass dynamics in a magnetic field in the vicinity of and below the spin-glass transition temperature T g. The spin-glass correlation length, ξ(t, t w; T), is analysed both in experiments and in simulations in terms of the waiting time t w after the spin glass has been cooled down to a stabilised measuring temperature T < T g and of the time t after the magnetic field is changed. This correlation length is extracted experimentally for a CuMn 6 at. % single crystal, as well as for simulations on the Janus II special-purpose supercomputer, the latter with time and length scales comparable to experiment. The non-linear magnetic susceptibility is reported from experiment and simulations, using ξ(t, t w; T) as the scaling variable. Previous experiments are reanalysed, and disagreements about the nature of the Zeeman energy are resolved. The growth of the spin-glass magnetisation in zero-field magnetisation experiments, M ZFC(t, t w; T), is measured from simulations, verifying the scaling relationships in the dynamical or non-equilibrium regime. Our preliminary search for the de Almeida–Thouless line in D = 3 is discussed.