Temperature Chaos Research Articles

Temperature cycles in the Heisenberg spin glass

We study numerically the nonequilibrium dynamics of the three-dimensional Heisenberg Edwards-Anderson spin glass submitted to protocols during which temperature is shifted or cycled within the spin glass phase. We show that (partial) rejuvenation and (perfect) memory effects can be numerically observed and study both effects in detail. We quantitatively characterize their dependences on parameters such as the amplitude of the temperature changes, the timescale at which the changes are performed, and the cooling rates used to vary the temperature. We contrast our results both to those found numerically in the Ising version of the model, and to experimental results in different samples. We discuss the theoretical interpretations of our findings, arguing, in particular, that `full' rejuvenation can be observed in experiments even if temperature chaos is absent.

Fragility of the Equilibrium State in the Four-Dimensional ±JIsing Spin Glass

Domain-wall free-energy, the difference in the free-energy between the system with the periodic boundary condition (BC) and that with the anti-periodic BC, is measured in the 4 dimensional ±J Ising spin glass. Temperature dependence of the domain-wall free-energy for each sample shows that the favorable BC changes with temperature, suggesting the existence of temperature chaos. We also investigate fragility of the equilibrium state against small changes of couplings {J ij } (bond chaos) by measuring the domain-wall free-energy. As a result, we find scaling behavior which suggests that the chaos exponent and the scaling function for temperature perturbation are the same as those for bond perturbation, meaning that temperature chaos and bond chaos belong to the same universarity class on fragility.

Dynamical Properties of Temperature Chaos and Memory Effect

In the frustrated interaction systems, the nature of ordered configuration can be intrinsically temperature dependent. There, the idea of effective coupling of decorated and frustrated bond plays an important role. The idea of effective coupling is verified in the study of equilibrium properties. We will study how the effective coupling is realized in the dynamical processes, e.g. the relaxation time after a change of temperature. We also study the memory phenomena which have been found in the spin glass.

Temperature and Disorder Chaos in Low Dimensional Directed Paths

The responses of a $1+\epsilon $ dimensional directed path to temperature and to potential variations are calculated exactly, and are governed by the same scaling form. The short scale decorrelation (strong correlation regime) leads to the overlap length predicted by heuristic approaches; its temperature dependence and large absolute value agree with scaling and numerical observations. Beyond the overlap length (weak correlation regime), the correlation decays algebraically. A clear physical mechanism explains the behavior in each case: the initial decorrelation is due to `fragile droplets,' which contribute to the entropy fluctuations as $\sqrt{T}$, while the residual correlation results from accidental intersections of otherwise uncorrelated configurations.

Aging phenomena in spin glasses: theory, experiment, and simulation

We study numerically temperature- and field-shift aging protocols on the three–dimensional (3D) Ising Edwards–Anderson (EA) spin-glass (SG) model focusing on, respectively, the temperature–chaos nature and the stability under a static field of the SG phase. The results of the latter strongly support the droplet theory which predicts the instability of the SG phase under the field. They are also discussed in relation with the experimental studies.

Temperature chaos, rejuvenation, and memory in Migdal-Kadanoff spin glasses.

We use simulations within the Migdal-Kadanoff approach to probe the scales relevant for rejuvenation and memory in Ising spin glasses. First we investigate scaling laws for domain wall free energies and extract the chaos overlap length l(T,T'). Then we perform out of equilibrium simulations that follow experimental protocols. We find that (1) a rejuvenation signal arises at a length scale significantly smaller than l(T,T'), and (2) memory survives even if equilibration goes out to length scales larger than l(T,T'). Theoretical justifications of these phenomena are then considered.

Real space renormalization group approach to spin-glass dynamics

The slow non-equilibrium dynamics of the Edwards-Anderson spin glass model on a hierarchical lattice is studied by means of a coarse-grained description based on renormalization concepts. We evaluate the isothermal aging properties and show how the occurrence of temperature chaos is connected to a gradual loss of memory when approaching the overlap length. This leads to rejuvenation effects in temperature shift protocols and to rejuvenation--memory effects in temperature cycling procedures with a pattern of behavior parallel to experimental observations.

Chaos in temperature in the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model.

We prove the existence of chaos in temperature in the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model. The effect is exceedingly small, namely, of the ninth order in perturbation theory. The equations describing two systems at different temperatures constrained to have a fixed overlap are studied analytically and numerically, yielding information about the behavior of the overlap distribution function PT1(,T2)(q) in finite-size systems.

Magnetic field chaos in the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model.

We study the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model, both above and below the de Almeida-Thouless line, by using a modified version of the Parallel Tempering algorithm in which the system is allowed to move between different values of the magnetic field h. The behavior of the probability distribution of the overlap between two replicas at different values of the magnetic field h(0) and h(1) gives clear evidence for the presence of magnetic field chaos already for moderate system sizes, in contrast to the case of temperature chaos, which is not visible on system sizes that can currently be thermalized.

Why temperature chaos in spin glasses is hard to observe.

The overlap length of a three-dimensional Ising spin glass on a cubic lattice with Gaussian interactions has been estimated numerically by transfer matrix methods and within a Migdal-Kadanoff renormalization group scheme. We find that the overlap length is large, explaining why it has been difficult to observe spin glass chaos in numerical simulations and experiment.

Ultrametricity between states at different temperatures in spin-glasses

We prove the existence of correlations between the equilibrium states at different temperatures of the multi-$p$-spin spherical spin-glass models with continuous replica symmetry breaking: there is no chaos in temperature in these models. Furthermore, the overlaps satisfy ultrametric relations. As a consequence the Parisi tree is essentially the same at all temperatures with lower branches developing when lowering the temperature. We conjecture that the reference free energies of the clusters are also fixed at all temperatures as in the generalized random-energy model.

Deviations from perfect memory in spin glass temperature cycling experiments

We study the deviations from perfect memory in negative temperature cycle spin glass experiments. It is known that the a.c. susceptibility after the temperature is raised back to its initial value is superimposed to the reference isothermal curve for large enough temperature jumps ΔT (perfect memory). For smaller ΔT, the deviation from this perfect memory has a striking non monotonous behavior: the `memory anomaly' is negative for small ΔT's, becomes positive for intermediate ΔT's, before vanishing for still larger ΔT's. We show that this interesting behavior can be reproduced by simple Random Energy trap models. We discuss an alternative interpretation in terms of droplets and temperature chaos.

Geometrical aspects of aging and rejuvenation in the Ising spin glass: A numerical study

We present a comprehensive study of non-equilibrium phenomena in the low temperature phase of the Edwards-Anderson Gaussian spin glass in 3 and 4 spatial dimensions. Many effects can be understood in terms of a time dependent coherence length, $\ell_T$, such that length scales smaller that $\ell_T$ are equilibrated, whereas larger length scales are essentially frozen. The time and temperature dependence of $\ell_T$ is found to be compatible with critical power-law dynamical scaling for small times/high temperatures, crossing over to an activated logarithmic growth for longer times/lower temperatures, in agreement with recent experimental results. The activated regime is governed by a `barrier exponent' psi which we estimate to be psi ~ 1.0 and psi ~ 2.3 in 3 and 4 dimensions, respectively. We observe for the first time the rejuvenation and memory effects in the four dimensional sample, which, we argue, is unrelated to `temperature chaos'. Our discussion in terms of length scales allows us to address several experimentally relevant issues, such as super-aging versus sub-aging effects, the role of a finite cooling rate, or the so-called Kovacs effect.

Chaotic temperature dependence in a model of spin glasses

We address the problem of chaotic temperature dependence in disordered glassy systems at equilibrium by following states of a random-energy random-entropy model in temperature; of particular interest are the crossings of the free-energies of these states. We find that this model exhibits strong, weak or no temperature chaos depending on the value of an exponent. This allows us to write a general criterion for temperature chaos in disordered systems, predicting the presence of temperature chaos in the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick and Edwards-Anderson spin glass models, albeit when the number of spins is large enough. The absence of chaos for smaller systems may justify why it is difficult to observe chaos with current simulations. We also illustrate our findings by studying temperature chaos in the naive mean field equations for the Edwards-Anderson spin glass.

Fragility of the free-energy landscape of a directed polymer in random media.

We examine the sensitiveness of the free-energy landscape of a directed polymer in random media with respect to various kinds of infinitesimally weak perturbation including the intriguing case of temperature chaos. To this end, we combine the replica Bethe Ansatz approach outlined by Sales and Yoshino (e-print cond-mat/0112384), the mapping to a modified Sinai model, and numerically exact calculations by the transfer-matrix method. Our results imply that for all the perturbations under study there is a slow crossover from a weakly perturbed regime, where rare events take place, to a strongly perturbed regime at larger length scales beyond the so-called overlap length, where typical events take place leading to chaos, i.e., a complete reshuffling of the free-energy landscape. Within the replica space, the evidence for chaos is found in the factorization of the replicated partition function induced by infinitesimal perturbations. This is the reflex of explicit replica-symmetry breaking.

Against chaos in temperature in mean-field spin-glass models

We study the problem of chaos in temperature in some mean-field spin-glass models by means of a replica computation over a model of coupled systems. We propose a set of solutions of the saddle point equations which are intrinsically non-chaotic and solve a general problem regarding the consistency of their structure. These solutions are relevant in the case of uncoupled systems too, therefore they imply a non-trivial overlap distribution $P(q_{T1T2})$ between systems at different temperatures. The existence of such solutions is checked to fifth order in an expansion near the critical temperature through highly non-trivial cancellations, while it is proved that a dangerous set of such cancellations holds exactly at all orders in the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick (SK) model. The SK model with soft-spin distribution is also considered obtaining analogous results. Previous analytical results are discussed.

Against temperature chaos in naive Thouless-Anderson-Palmer equations

We study the temperature structure of the naive Thouless-Anderson-Palmer equations by means of a recursive algorithm. The problem of the chaos in temperature is addressed using the notion of the temperature evolution of equilibrium states. The lowest free energy states show relevant correlations with the ground state, and a careful finite size analysis indicates that these correlations are not finite size effects, ruling out the possibility of chaos in temperature even in the thermodynamic limit. The correlations of the equilibrium states with respect to the ground state are investigated. The performance of a heuristic algorithm for the search of ground states is also discussed.

Evidence against temperature chaos in mean-field and realistic spin glasses

We discuss temperature chaos in mean field and realistic 3D spin glasses. Our numerical simulations show no trace of a temperature chaotic behavior for the system sizes considered. We discuss the experimental and theoretical implications of these findings.

Temperature Chaos and the Lattice Character of the Hooge Parameter in Semiconductors

The influence of the electron–phonon interaction on formation of the low-frequency noise in semiconductors is theoretically considered. The determining role of scattering mechanisms in formation of the 1/f low frequency noise is shown. The temperature dependence of the Hooge parameter αH is revealed and explained. The lattice character of αH is proven.

Chaos and thermal noise in the rf-biased Josephson junction

The effect of thermal noise on chaotic behavior in the rf-biased Josephson junction is studied through digital simulations. In instances for which chaotic behavior occurs in the noise-free system, it is found that the dynamics of the system are almost unchanged by the addition of thermal noise unless the level of thermal noise exceeds that of the chaotic state. In instances for which the only stable states of the noise-free system are periodic solutions, small amounts of thermal noise can induce the junction to hop between two different dynamical states, producing a low-frequency noise level much higher than that of the thermal noise. Such noise-induced hopping can occur either between two periodic solutions or between a periodic solution and a metastable chaotic solution. When a metastable chaotic state is involved, temperatures somewhat higher than those which produce hopping can destablize the periodic solution to the point where the system spends virtually all of its time in the metastable chaotic state, creating noise-induced chaos. The similarities between chaotic behavior at zero temperature and noise-induced chaos are sufficiently strong that it may be difficult to distinguish the two cases experimentally.