Finite-temperature Spin-glass Transition Research Articles

Dipolar spin glass transition in three dimensions

Dilute dipolar Ising magnets remain a notoriously hard problem to tackle both analytically and numerically because of long-ranged interactions between spins as well as rare region effects. We study a new type of anisotropic dilute dipolar Ising system in three dimensions [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 114}, 247207 (2015)] that arises as an effective description of randomly diluted classical spin ice, a prototypical spin liquid in the disorder-free limit, with a small fraction $x$ of non-magnetic impurities. Metropolis algorithm within a parallel thermal tempering scheme fails to achieve equilibration for this problem already for small system sizes. Motivated by previous work [Phys. Rev. X {\bf 4}, 041016 (2014)] on uniaxial random dipoles, we present an improved cluster Monte Carlo algorithm that is tailor-made for removing the equilibration bottlenecks created by clusters of {\it effectively frozen} spins. By performing large-scale simulations down to $x=1/128$ and using finite size scaling, we show the existence of a finite-temperature spin glass transition and give strong evidence that the universality of the critical point is independent of $x$ when it is small. In this $x \ll 1$ limit, we also provide a first estimate of both the thermal exponent, $\nu=1.27(8)$, and the anomalous exponent, $\eta=0.228(35)$.

How Small-World Interactions Can Lead to Improved Quantum Annealer Designs

There are many factors that influence the design of quantum annealing processing units. Here we address the issue of improving quantum annealing processing unit designs from the point of view of the critical behavior of spin glasses. It has been argued [Phys. Rev. X 4, 021008 (2014)] that among the most difficult Ising spin-glass ground-state problems are those related to lattices which exhibit a finite-temperature spin-glass transition. Here, we show that adding small-world couplers between qubits (spins) to the native quasi-planar quantum processing unit graph results in a topology where a disordered Ising system can undergo a finite-temperature spin-glass transition, even when an Ising spin glass on the quasi-planar native graph does not display a transition into a glassy phase at any finite temperature. To ensure that these systems can be engineered with current fabrication techniques, using large-scale Monte Carlo simulations we demonstrate that highly-constrained systems restricted to a few fabrication layers and with fixed coupler angles can also exhibit a finite-temperature spin-glass transition. This indicates that these systems might be mean-field-like, which also means that embedding highly-nonplanar problems might be simplified when compared to the underlying native topology. Our results are illustrated using the quasi-planar Chimera topology currently used in the D-Wave Systems Inc. quantum annealing machines, as well as standard two-dimensional square lattices. The presented approach can be generalized to other topologies.

Lack of a thermodynamic finite-temperature spin-glass phase in the two-dimensional randomly coupled ferromagnet

The search for problems where quantum adiabatic optimization might excel over classical optimization techniques has sparked a recent interest in inducing a finite-temperature spin-glass transition in quasi-planar topologies. We have performed large-scale finite-temperature Monte Carlo simulations of a two-dimensional square-lattice bimodal spin glass with next-nearest ferromagnetic interactions claimed to exhibit a finite-temperature spin-glass state for a particular relative strength of the next-nearest to nearest interactions [Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 4616 (1996)]. Our results show that the system is in a paramagnetic state in the thermodynamic limit, despite zero-temperature simulations [Phys. Rev. B 63, 094423 (2001)] suggesting the existence of a finite-temperature spin-glass transition. Therefore, deducing the finite-temperature behavior from zero-temperature simulations can be dangerous when corrections to scaling are large.

Boolean decision problems with competing interactions on scale-free networks: Critical thermodynamics

We study the critical behavior of Boolean variables on scale-free networks with competing interactions (Ising spin glasses). Our analytical results for the disorder-network-decay-exponent phase diagram are verified using Monte Carlo simulations. When the probability of positive (ferromagnetic) and negative (antiferromagnetic) interactions is the same, the system undergoes a finite-temperature spin-glass transition if the exponent that describes the decay of the interaction degree in the scale-free graph is strictly larger than 3. However, when the exponent is equal to or less than 3, a spin-glass phase is stable for all temperatures. The robustness of both the ferromagnetic and spin-glass phases suggests that Boolean decision problems on scale-free networks are quite stable to local perturbations. Finally, we show that for a given decay exponent spin glasses on scale-free networks seem to obey universality. Furthermore, when the decay exponent of the interaction degree is larger than 4 in the spin-glass sector, the universality class is the same as for the mean-field Sherrington-Kirkpatrick Ising spin glass.

Zero-temperature complex replica zeros of the ± J Ising spin glass on mean-field systems and beyond

Zeros of the moment of the partition function [ Z n ] J with respect to complex n are investigated in the zero-temperature limit β → ∞ , n → 0 keeping y = β n ≈ O ( 1 ) . We numerically investigate the zeros of the ± J Ising spin-glass models on several Cayley trees and hierarchical lattices and compare those results. In both lattices, the calculations are carried out with feasible computational costs by using recursion relations originated from the structures of those lattices. The results for Cayley trees show that a sequence of the zeros approaches the real axis of y implying that a certain type of analyticity breaking actually occurs, although it is irrelevant for any known replica symmetry breaking. The result of hierarchical lattices also shows the presence of analyticity breaking, even in the two dimensional case in which there is no finite-temperature spin-glass transition, which implies the existence of the zero-temperature phase transition in the system. A notable tendency of hierarchical lattices is that the zeros spread in a wide region of the complex y plane in comparison with the case of Cayley trees, which may reflect the difference between the mean-field and finite-dimensional systems.

Finite temperature phase transition in the three-dimensional Heisenberg ±J spin glass model

The three-dimensional Heisenberg spin glass model with ±J interactions is studied using an over-relaxed Monte Carlo algorithm. We have measured the correlation length ξ, and using the crossing of ξ∕L for different L find a finite temperature spin glass transition, with TSG=0.220(5). In addition, we have varied the number of Monte Carlo steps used prior to, and during, thermal averaging to control the effects of finite time averaging. We find that the over-relaxation algorithm allows for an accurate measurements using as few as 300 Monte Carlo steps.

The four-dimensionalXYspin glass

The nearest-neighbour XY spin glass on a hypercubic lattice in four dimensions is studied by Monte Carlo simulations. A finite-size scaling analysis of the data leads to a finite-temperature spin glass transition at . The critical exponents are estimated to be and . The results imply that the lower critical dimensionality for the XY spin glass is less than four.

Numerical simulations on the 4D Heisenberg spin glass

We study the 4d Heisenberg spin glass model with Gaussian nearest-neighbor interactions. We use finite size scaling to analyze the data. We find a behavior consistent with a finite temperature spin glass transition. Our estimates for the critical exponents agree with the results from epsilon-expansion.