Three-dimensional Edwards-Anderson Ising Spin Glass Research Articles

Number of thermodynamic states in the three-dimensional Edwards-Anderson spin glass

The question of the number of thermodynamic states present in the low-temperature phase of the three-dimensional Edwards-Anderson Ising spin glass is addressed by studying spin and link overlap distributions using population annealing Monte Carlo simulations. We consider overlaps between systems with the same boundary condition-which are the usual quantities measured-and also overlaps between systems with different boundary conditions, both for the full systems and also within a smaller window within the system. Our results appear to be fully compatible with a single pair of pure states such as in the droplet/scaling picture. However, our results for whether or not domain walls induced by changing boundary conditions are space filling or not are also compatible with scenarios having many thermodynamic states, such as the chaotic pairs picture and the replica symmetry breaking picture. The differing results for spin overlaps in same and different boundary conditions suggest that finite-size effects are very large for the system sizes currently accessible in low-temperature simulations.

Bond chaos in spin glasses revealed through thermal boundary conditions

Spin glasses have competing interactions that lead to a rough energy landscape which is highly susceptible to small perturbations. These chaotic effects strongly affect numerical simulations and, as such, gaining a deeper understanding of chaos in spin glasses is of much importance. The use of thermal boundary conditions is an effective approach to study chaotic phenomena. Here, we generalize population annealing Monte Carlo, combined with thermal boundary conditions, to study bond chaos due to small perturbations in the spin-spin couplings of the three-dimensional Edwards-Anderson Ising spin glass. We show that bond and temperature-induced chaos share the same scaling exponents and that bond chaos is stronger than temperature chaos.

Chaos in spin glasses revealed through thermal boundary conditions

We study the fragility of spin glasses to small temperature perturbations numerically using population annealing Monte Carlo. We apply thermal boundary conditions to a three-dimensional Edwards-Anderson Ising spin glass. In thermal boundary conditions all eight combinations of periodic versus antiperiodic boundary conditions in the three spatial directions are present, each appearing in the ensemble with its respective statistical weight determined by its free energy. We show that temperature chaos is revealed in the statistics of crossings in the free energy for different boundary conditions. By studying the energy difference between boundary conditions at free-energy crossings, we determine the domain-wall fractal dimension. Similarly, by studying the number of crossings, we determine the chaos exponent. Our results also show that computational hardness in spin glasses and the presence of chaos are closely related.

Measuring free energy in spin-lattice models using parallel tempering Monte Carlo.

An efficient and simple approach of measuring the absolute free energy as a function of temperature for spin lattice models using a two-stage parallel tempering Monte Carlo and the free energy perturbation method is discussed and the results are compared with those of population annealing Monte Carlo using the three-dimensional Edwards-Anderson Ising spin glass model as benchmark tests. This approach requires little modification of regular parallel tempering Monte Carlo codes with also little overhead. Numerical results show that parallel tempering, even though using a much less number of temperatures than population annealing, can nevertheless equally efficiently measure the absolute free energy by simulating each temperature for longer times.

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.

Correlations between the dynamics of parallel tempering and the free-energy landscape in spin glasses

We present the results of a large-scale numerical study of the equilibrium three-dimensional Edwards-Anderson Ising spin glass with Gaussian disorder. Using parallel tempering (replica exchange) Monte Carlo we measure various static, as well as dynamical quantities, such as the autocorrelation times and round-trip times for the parallel tempering Monte Carlo method. The correlation between static and dynamic observables for 5000 disorder realizations and up to 1000 spins down to temperatures at 20% of the critical temperature is examined. Our results show that autocorrelation times are directly correlated with the roughness of the free-energy landscape.

Domain growth and aging scaling in coarsening disordered systems

Using extensive Monte Carlo simulations we study aging properties of two disordered systems quenched below their critical point, namely the two-dimensional random-bond Ising model and the three-dimensional Edwards-Anderson Ising spin glass with a bimodal distribution of the coupling constants. We study the two-times autocorrelation and space-time correlation functions and show that in both systems a simple aging scenario prevails in terms of the scaling variable L(t)/L(s), where L is the time-dependent correlation length, whereas s is the waiting time and t is the observation time. The investigation of the space-time correlation function for the random-bond Ising model allows us to address some issues related to superuniversality.

Absence of an Almeida-Thouless Line in Three-Dimensional Spin Glasses

We present results of Monte Carlo simulations of the three-dimensional Edwards-Anderson Ising spin glass in the presence of a (random) field. A finite-size scaling analysis of the correlation length shows no indication of a transition, in contrast with the zero-field case. This suggests that there is no Almeida-Thouless line for short-range Ising spin glasses.

Low-energy excitations in spin glasses from exact ground states

We investigate the nature of the low-energy, large-scale excitations in the three-dimensional Edwards-Anderson Ising spin glass with Gaussian couplings and free boundary conditions, by studying the response of the ground state to a coupling-dependent perturbation introduced previously. The ground states are determined exactly for system sizes up to 12^3 spins using a branch and cut algorithm. The data are consistent with a picture where the surface of the excitations is not space-filling, such as the droplet or the ``TNT'' picture, with only minimal corrections to scaling. When allowing for very large corrections to scaling, the data are also consistent with a picture with space-filling surfaces, such as replica symmetry breaking. The energy of the excitations scales with their size with a small exponent \theta', which is compatible with zero if we allow moderate corrections to scaling. We compare the results with data for periodic boundary conditions obtained with a genetic algorithm, and discuss the effects of different boundary conditions on corrections to scaling. Finally, we analyze the performance of our branch and cut algorithm, finding that it is correlated with the existence of large-scale,low-energy excitations.

Functional form of the Parisi overlap distribution for the three-dimensional Edwards-Anderson Ising spin glass.

Recently, it has been conjectured that the statistics of extremes is of relevance for a large class of correlated systems. For certain probability densities this predicts the characteristic large x falloff behavior f(x) approximately exp(-ae(x)), a>0. Using a multicanonical Monte Carlo technique, we have measured the Parisi overlap distribution P(q) for the three-dimensional Edward-Anderson Ising spin glass at and below the critical temperature We find that a probability distribution related to extreme-order statistics gives an excellent description of P(q) over about 80 orders of magnitude.

Energy barriers of spin glasses from multi-overlap simulations

We report large-scale simulations of the three-dimensional Edwards-Anderson Ising spin glass system using the recently introduced multi-overlap Monte Carlo algorithm. In this approach the temperature is fixed and two replica are coupled through a weight factor such that a broad distribution of the Parisi overlap parameter q is achieved. Canonical expectation values for the entire q-range (multi-overlap) follow by reweighting. We present an analysis of the performance of the algorithm and in particular discuss results on spin glass free-energy barriers which are hard to obtain with conventional algorithms. In addition we discuss the non-trivial scaling behavior of the canonical q-distributions in the broken phase.

Ground-state properties of the three-dimensional Ising spin glass.

We study zero-temperature properties of the three-dimensional Edwards-Anderson Ising spin glass on finite lattices up to size ${12}^{3}$. Using multicanonical sampling we generate large numbers of ground-state configurations in thermal equilibrium. Finite-size scaling fits of the data are carried out for two hypothetical scenarios: Parisi mean-field theory versus a droplet scaling ansatz. With a zero-temperature scaling exponent y=0.72\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.12 the data are well described by the droplet scaling ansatz. Alternatively, a description in terms of the Parisi mean-field behavior is still possible. The two scenarios give significantly different predictions on lattices of size \ensuremath{\ge}${12}^{3}$.