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Rare Regions And Griffiths Singularities At A Clean Critical Point: The Five-Dimensional Disordered Contact Process, Thomas Vojta, John Igo, José A. Hoyos
Rare Regions And Griffiths Singularities At A Clean Critical Point: The Five-Dimensional Disordered Contact Process, Thomas Vojta, John Igo, José A. Hoyos
Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works
We investigate the nonequilibrium phase transition of the disordered contact process in five space dimensions by means of optimal fluctuation theory and Monte Carlo simulations. We find that the critical behavior is of mean-field type, i.e., identical to that of the clean five-dimensional contact process. It is accompanied by off-critical power-law Griffiths singularities whose dynamical exponent z' saturates at a finite value as the transition is approached. These findings resolve the apparent contradiction between the Harris criterion, which implies that weak disorder is renormalization-group irrelevant, and the rare-region classification, which predicts unconventional behavior. We confirm and illustrate our theory by …
Criticality And Quenched Disorder: Harris Criterion Versus Rare Regions, Thomas Vojta, José A. Hoyos
Criticality And Quenched Disorder: Harris Criterion Versus Rare Regions, Thomas Vojta, José A. Hoyos
Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works
We employ scaling arguments and optimal fluctuation theory to establish a general relation between quantum Griffiths singularities and the Harris criterion for quantum phase transitions in disordered systems. If a clean critical point violates the Harris criterion, it is destabilized by weak disorder. At the same time, the Griffiths dynamical exponent z' diverges upon approaching the transition, suggesting unconventional critical behavior. In contrast, if the Harris criterion is fulfilled, power-law Griffiths singularities can coexist with clean critical behavior, but z' saturates at a finite value. We present applications of our theory to a variety of systems including quantum spin chains, …