Short-range Spin Glasses Research Articles

Free Energy Difference Fluctuations in Short-Range Spin Glasses

Free Energy Difference Fluctuations in Short-Range Spin Glasses

Overlap structure and free energy fluctuations in short-range spin glasses

We investigate scenarios in which the low-temperature phase of short-range spin glasses comprises thermodynamic states which are nontrivial mixtures of multiple incongruent pure state pairs. We construct a new kind of metastate supported on Gibbs states whose edge overlap values with a reference state fall within a specified range. Using this metastate we show that, in any dimension, the variance of free energy difference fluctuations between pure states within a single mixed Gibbs state with multiple edge overlap values diverges linearly with the volume. We discuss some implications of these results.

Griffiths-Type Theorems for Short-Range Spin Glass Models

We establish relations between different characterizations of order in spin glass models. We first prove that the broadening of the replica overlap distribution indicated by a nonzero standard deviation of the replica overlap R1,2\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$R^{1,2}$$\\end{document} implies the non-differentiability of the two-replica free energy with respect to the replica coupling parameter λ\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\lambda $$\\end{document}. In Z2\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$${\\mathbb {Z}}_2$$\\end{document} invariant models such as the standard Edwards–Anderson model, the non-differentiability is equivalent to the spin glass order characterized by a nonzero Edwards–Anderson order parameter. This generalization of Griffiths’ theorem is proved for any short-range spin glass models with classical bounded spins. We also prove that the non-differentiability of the two-replica free energy mentioned above implies replica symmetry breaking in the literal sense, i.e., a spontaneous breakdown of the permutation symmetry in the model with three replicas. This is a general result that applies to a large class of random spin models, including long-range models such as the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model and the random energy model. There is a 25-minute video that explains the main results of the present work:https://youtu.be/BF3hJiY1xvI

Proof of Single-Replica Equivalence in Short-Range Spin Glasses.

We consider short-range Ising spin glasses in equilibrium at infinite system size, and prove that, for fixed bond realization and a given Gibbs state drawn from a suitable metastate, each translation and locally invariant function (for example, self-overlaps) of a single pure state in the decomposition of the Gibbs state takes the same value for all the pure states in that Gibbs state. We describe several significant applications to spin glasses.

Ordering behavior of the two-dimensional Ising spin glass with long-range correlated disorder.

The standard short-range two-dimensional Ising spin glass is numerically well accessible, in particular, because there are polynomial-time ground-state algorithms. On the other hand, in contrast to higher dimensional spin glasses, it does not exhibit a rich behavior, i.e., no ordered phase at finite temperature. Here, we investigate whether long-range correlated bonds change this behavior. This would still keep the model numerically well accessible while exhibiting a more interesting behavior. The bonds are drawn from a Gaussian distribution with a two-point correlation for bonds at distance r that decays as (1+r^{2})^{-a/2}, a≥0. We study numerically with exact algorithms the ground-state and domain-wall excitations. Our results indicate that the inclusion of bond correlations still does not lead to a spin-glass order at any finite temperature. A further analysis reveals that bond correlations have a strong effect at local length scales, inducing ferro- and antiferromagnetic domains into the system. The length scale of ferro- and antiferromagnetic order diverges exponentially as the correlation exponent approaches a critical value, a→a_{crit}=0. Thus, our results suggest that the system becomes a ferro- or antiferromagnet only in the limit a→0.

Uniqueness of Ground State in the Edwards–Anderson Spin Glass Model

It is proven rigorously that the ground state in the Edwards-Anderson spin glass model is unique in any dimension for almost all continuous random exchange interactions under a condition that a single spin breaks the global ${\mathbb Z}_2$ symmetry. This theorem implies that replica symmetry breaking does not occur at zero temperature. The site- and bond-overlap are concentrated at their maximal values. It is argued that behaviors of short range spin glass models are much different from those of mean field spin glass models near zero temperature. Errata have been attached at the final page.

One-step replica-symmetry-breaking phase below the de Almeida-Thouless line in low-dimensional spin glasses.

The de Almeida-Thouless (AT) line is the phase boundary in the temperature-magnetic field plane of an Ising spin glass at which a continuous (i.e., second-order) transition from a paramagnet to a replica-symmetry-breaking (RSB) phase occurs, according to mean-field theory. Here, using field-theoretic perturbative renormalization group methods on the Bray-Roberts reduced Landau-Ginzburg-type theory for a short-range Ising spin glass in space of dimension d, we show that at nonzero magnetic field the nature of the corresponding transition is modified as follows: (a) For d-6 small and positive, with increasing field on the AT line, first, the ordered phase just below the transition becomes the so-called one-step RSB, instead of the full RSB that occurs in mean-field theory; the transition on the AT line remains continuous with a diverging correlation length. Then at a higher field, a tricritical point separates the latter transition from a quasi-first-order one, that is one at which the correlation length does not diverge, and there is a jump in part of the order parameter, but no latent heat. The location of the tricritical point tends to zero as d→6^{+}. (b) For d≤6, we argue that the quasi-first-order transition could persist down to arbitrarily small nonzero fields, with a transition to full RSB still expected at lower temperature. Whenever the quasi-first-order transition occurs, it is at a higher temperature than the AT transition would be for the same field, preempting it as the temperature is lowered. These results may explain the reported absence of a diverging correlation length in the presence of a magnetic field in low-dimensional spin glasses in some simulations and in high-temperature series expansions. We also draw attention to the similarity of the "dynamically frozen" state, which occurs at temperatures just above the quasi-first-order transition, and the "metastate-average state" of the one-step RSB phase, and discuss the issue of the number of pure states in either.

High-precision studies of domain-wall properties in the 2D Gaussian Ising spin glass

In two dimensions, short-range spin glasses order only at zero temperature, where efficient combinatorial optimization techniques can be used to study these systems with high precision. The use of large system sizes and high statistics in disorder averages allows for reliable finite-size extrapolations to the thermodynamic limit. Here, we use a recently introduced mapping of the Ising spin-glass ground-state problem to a minimum-weight perfect matching problem on a sparse auxiliary graph to study square-lattice samples of up to 10 000 × 10 000 spins. We propose a windowing technique that allows to extend this method, that is formally restricted to planar graphs, to the case of systems with fully periodic boundary conditions. These methods enable highly accurate estimates of the spin-stiffness exponent and domain-wall fractal dimension of the 2D Edwards-Anderson spin-glass with Gaussian couplings. Studying the compatibility of domain walls in this system with traces of stochastic Loewner evolution (SLE), we find a strong dependence on boundary conditions and compatibility with SLE only for one out of several setups.

Magnetic Phase Diagram of CuCr2–xSb x S4 Solid Solutions

The magnetization of CuCr2–xSb x S4 solid solutions has been measured as a function of temperature between 300 and 5 K in a weak (3980 A/m) and a strong (7960 A/m) magnetic field. We have identified the type and character of the magnetic transformations observed in the system and determined the temperature and composition limits of the stability regions of the magnetically active phases involved and the cation and valence distributions in them. A magnetic phase diagram of the synthesized materials has been mapped out, where the largest area (0 < x < 0.23) after the paramagnetic region is occupied by solid solutions based on the CuCr2S4 ferromagnet. In the composition range (0.23 < x < 0.40) adjacent to the infinite clusters—CuCr2S4 ferromagnet and CuCr1.5Sb0.5S4 antiferromagnet—the phase diagram contains medium and small finite ferro- and antiferromagnetic clusters forming a short-range magnetic order or spin glass. The compositions based on the CuCr1.5Sb0.5S4 antiferromagnet lie in the composition range 0.4 < x < 0.5.

Numerical simulations of Ising spin glasses with free boundary conditions: The role of droplet excitations and domain walls.

The relative importance of the contributions of droplet excitations and domain walls on the ordering of short-range Edwards-Anderson spin glasses in three and four dimensions is studied. We compare the spin overlap distribution functions of periodic and free boundary conditions using population annealing Monte Carlo. For system sizes up to about 1000 spins, spin glasses show nontrivial spin overlap distributions. Periodic boundary conditions may trap diffusive domain walls which can contribute to small spin overlaps, and the other contribution is the existence of low-energy droplet excitations within the system. We use free boundary conditions to minimize domain-wall effects, and show that low-energy droplet excitations are the major contribution to small overlaps in numerical simulations. Free boundary conditions has stronger finite-size effects, and is likely to have the same thermodynamic limit with periodic boundary conditions.

Unconventional critical activated scaling of two-dimensional quantum spin glasses

We study the critical behavior of two-dimensional short-range quantum spin glasses by numerical simulations. Using a parallel tempering algorithm, we calculate the Binder cumulant for the Ising spin glass in a transverse magnetic field with two different short-range bond distributions, the bimodal and the Gaussian ones. Through an exhaustive finite-size scaling analysis, we show that the universality class does not depend on the exact form of the bond distribution but, most important, that the quantum critical behavior is governed by an infinite randomness fixed point.

Simulating thermal boundary conditions of spin–lattice models with weighted averages

Thermal boundary conditions have played an increasingly important role in revealing the nature of short-range spin glasses and is likely to be relevant also for other disordered systems. Diffusion method initializing each replica with a random boundary condition at the infinite temperature using population annealing has been used in recent large-scale simulations. However, the efficiency of this method can be greatly suppressed because of temperature chaos. For example, most samples have some boundary conditions that are completely eliminated from the population in the process of annealing at low temperatures. In this work, I study a weighted average method to solve this problem by simulating each boundary conditions separately and collect data using weighted averages. The efficiency of the two methods is studied using both population annealing and parallel tempering, showing that the weighted average method is more efficient and accurate.

The connection between statics and dynamics of spin glasses

We present results of numerical simulations on a one-dimensional Ising spin glass with long-range interactions. Parameters of the model are chosen such that it is a proxy for a short-range spin glass above the upper critical dimension (i.e. in the mean-field regime). The system is quenched to a temperature well below the transition temperature and the growth of correlations is observed. The spatial decay of the correlations at distances less than the dynamic correlation length agrees quantitatively with the predictions of a static theory, the ‘metastate’, evaluated according to the replica symmetry breaking (RSB) theory. We also compute the dynamic exponent z (T ) defined by and find that it is compatible with the mean-field value of the critical dynamical exponent for short range spin glasses.

Thermodynamic Identities and Symmetry Breaking in Short-Range Spin Glasses.

We present a technique to generate relations connecting pure state weights, overlaps, and correlation functions in short-range spin glasses. These are obtained directly from the unperturbed Hamiltonian and hold for general coupling distributions. All are satisfied in phases with simple thermodynamic structure, such as the droplet-scaling and chaotic pairs pictures. If instead nontrivial mixed-state pictures hold, the relations suggest that replica symmetry is broken as described by a Derrida-Ruelle cascade, with pure state weights distributed as a Poisson-Dirichlet process.

Critical properties of short-range Ising spin glasses on a Wheatstone-bridge hierarchical lattice.

An Ising spin-glass model with nearest-neighbor interactions, following a symmetric probability distribution, is investigated on a hierarchical lattice of the Wheatstone-bridge family characterized by a fractal dimension D≈3.58. The interaction distribution considered is a stretched exponential, which has been shown recently to be very close to the fixed-point coupling distribution, and such a model has been considered lately as a good approach for Ising spin glasses on a cubic lattice. An exact recursion procedure is implemented for calculating site magnetizations, mi=〈Si〉T, as well as correlations between pairs of nearest-neighbor spins, 〈SiSj〉T (〈〉T denote thermal averages), for a given set of interaction couplings on this lattice. From these local magnetizations and correlations, one can compute important physical quantities, such as the Edwards-Anderson order parameter, the internal energy, and the specific heat. Considering extrapolations to the thermodynamic limit for the order parameter, such as a finite-size scaling approach, it is possible to obtain directly the critical temperature and critical exponents. The transition between the spin-glass and paramagnetic phases is analyzed, and the associated critical exponents β and ν are estimated as β=0.82(5) and ν=2.50(4), which are in good agreement with the most recent results from extensive numerical simulations on a cubic lattice. Since these critical exponents were obtained from a fixed-point distribution, they are universal, i.e., valid for any coupling distribution considered.

Fixed-point distributions of short-range Ising spin glasses on hierarchical lattices.

Fixed-point distributions for the couplings of Ising spin glasses with nearest-neighbor interactions on hierarchical lattices are investigated numerically. Hierarchical lattices within the Migdal-Kadanoff family with fractal dimensions in the range 2.58≤D≤7, as well as a lattice of the Wheatstone-Bridge family with fractal dimension D≈3.58 are considered. Three initial distributions for the couplings are analyzed, namely, the Gaussian, bimodal, and uniform ones. In all cases, after a few iterations of the renormalization-group procedure, the associated probability distributions approached universal fixed shapes. For hierarchical lattices of the Migdal-Kadanoff family, the fixed-point distributions were well fitted either by stretched exponentials, or by q-Gaussian distributions; both fittings recover the expected Gaussian limit as D→∞. In the case of the Wheatstone-Bridge lattice, the best fit was found by means of a stretched-exponential distribution.

Evidence against a mean-field description of short-range spin glasses revealed through thermal boundary conditions

A theoretical description of the low-temperature phase of short-range spin glasses has remained elusive for decades. In particular, it is unclear if theories that assert a single pair of pure states, or theories that are based on infinitely many pure states---such as replica symmetry breaking---best describe realistic short-range systems. To resolve this controversy, the three-dimensional Edwards-Anderson Ising spin glass in thermal boundary conditions is studied numerically using population annealing Monte Carlo. In thermal boundary conditions all eight combinations of periodic vs antiperiodic boundary conditions in the three spatial directions appear in the ensemble with their respective Boltzmann weights, thus minimizing finite-size corrections due to domain walls. From the relative weighting of the eight boundary conditions for each disorder instance a sample stiffness is defined, and its typical value is shown to grow with system size according to a stiffness exponent. An extrapolation to the large-system-size limit is in agreement with a description that supports the droplet picture and other theories that assert a single pair of pure states. The results are, however, incompatible with the mean-field replica symmetry breaking picture, thus highlighting the need to go beyond mean-field descriptions to accurately describe short-range spin-glass systems.

The perturbative structure of spin glass field theory

Cubic replicated field theory is used to study the glassy phase of the short-range Ising spin glass just below the transition temperature, and for systems above, at, and slightly below the upper critical dimension six. The order parameter function is computed up to two-loop order. There are two, well-separated bands in the mass spectrum, just as in mean field theory. The small mass band acts as an infrared cutoff, whereas contributions from the large mass region can be computed perturbatively (d>6), or interpreted by the ϵ-expansion around the critical fixed point (d=6−ϵ). The one-loop calculation of the (momentum-dependent) longitudinal mass, and the whole replicon sector is also presented. The innocuous behavior of the replicon masses while crossing the upper critical dimension shows that the ultrametric replica symmetry broken phase remains stable below six dimensions.

Self-Organized Criticality in Glassy Spin Systems Requires a Diverging Number of Neighbors

We investigate the conditions required for general spin systems with frustration and disorder to display self-organized criticality, a property which so far has been established only for the fully connected infinite-range Sherrington-Kirkpatrick Ising spin-glass model [Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 1034 (1999)]. Here, we study both avalanche and magnetization jump distributions triggered by an external magnetic field, as well as internal field distributions in the short-range Edwards-Anderson Ising spin glass for various space dimensions between 2 and 8, as well as the fixed-connectivity mean-field Viana-Bray model. Our numerical results, obtained on systems of unprecedented size, demonstrate that self-organized criticality is recovered only in the strict limit of a diverging number of neighbors and is not a generic property of spin-glass models in finite space dimensions.

Chaos and stiffness exponents for short-range Gaussian Ising spin glasses

Two important exponents in spin-glass theory, namely, the chaos (ζ) and stiffness (y) exponents, are studied for Ising spin glasses with nearest-neighbor Gaussian interactions on different approaches to Bravais lattices. We consider hierarchical lattices of the Migdal–Kadanoff type (both diamond and tress families), with varying fractal dimensions, as well as two lattices of the Wheatstone-bridge family, more specifically, those with fractal dimensions D ≈ 2.32 and D ≈ 3.58. Whenever it is possible to compare, our estimates agree with those obtained from extensive numerical simulations on Bravais lattices, suggesting the present results represent good approximations for these exponents.