The interactions between a group of components are commonly studied in several areas of science (social science, biology, material science, complex dynamical systems, among others) using the methods of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. In this work we study the properties of the recently proposed off-lattice, two-dimensional Potts model [Eur. Phys. J. B 87, 78 (2014)], originally motivated by the dynamics of agent opinions, and which is described by a Hamiltonian obtained by a maximum entropy inference procedure. We performed microcanonical and canonical Monte Carlo simulations of the first-order phase transition in the model, revealing a caloric curve with metastable regions. Furthermore, we report a "switching" behavior between multiple metastable states. We also note that the thermodynamics of the model has striking similarities with systems having long-range interactions, even though the interactions are short-ranged.
The existence and limits of metastable droplets have been calculated using finite-system renormalization-group theory, for q-state Potts models in spatial dimension d=3. The dependence of the droplet critical sizes on magnetic field, temperature, and number of Potts states q has been calculated. The same method has also been used for the calculation of hysteresis loops across first-order phase transitions in these systems. The hysteresis loop sizes and shapes have been deduced as a function of magnetic field, temperature, and number of Potts states q. The uneven appearance of asymmetry in the …
We study the metastable equilibrium properties of the Potts model with heat-bath transition rates using a novel expansion. The method is especially powerful for large number of state spin variables and it is notably accurate in a rather wide range of temperatures around the phase transition.
We study homogeneous nucleation in the two-dimensional $q-$state Potts model for $q=3,5,10,20$ and ferromagnetic couplings $J_{ij} \propto Θ(R - |i-j|)$, by means of Monte Carlo simulations employing heat bath dynamics. Metastability is induced in the low temperature phase through an instantaneous quench of the magnetic field coupled to one of the $q$ spin states. The quench depth is adjusted, depending on the value of temperature $T$, interaction range $R$, and number of states $q$, in such a way that a constant nucleation time is always obtained. In this setup we analyze the crossover betwee…
We study the stochastic dynamics of infinitely many globally interacting $q$-state units on a ring that is externally driven. While repulsive interactions always lead to uniform occupations, attractive interactions give rise to much richer phenomena: We analytically characterize a Hopf bifurcation which separates a high-temperature regime of uniform occupations from a low-temperature one where all units coalesce into a single state. For odd $q$ below the critical temperature starts a synchronization regime which ends via a second phase transition at lower temperatures, while for even $q$ this …
Reexamining algebraic curves found in the eight-vertex model, we propose an asymptotic form of the correlation functions for off-critical systems possessing rotational and mirror symmetries of the square lattice, i.e., the $C_{4v}$ symmetry. In comparison with the use of the Ornstein-Zernike form, it is efficient to investigate the correlation length with its directional dependence (or anisotropy). We investigate the $Q$-state Potts model on the square lattice. Monte Carlo (MC) simulations are performed using the infinite-size algorithm by Evertz and von der Linden. Fitting the MC data with th…
Universal asymptotic correlation functions for point group $\boldsymbol{C_{6v}}$ and an observation for triangular lattice $\boldsymbol{Q}$-state Potts model
