In this work, we consider a two-dimensional square lattice of pinned magnetic spins with nearest-neighbour interactions and we randomly replace a fixed proportion of spins with nonmagnetic defects carrying no spin. We focus on the linear spin-wave regime and address the propagation of a spin-wave excitation with initial momentum $k_0$. We compute the disorder-averaged momentum distribution obtained at time $t$ and show that the system exhibits two regimes. At low defect density, typical disorder configurations only involve a single percolating magnetic cluster interspersed with single defects essentially and the physics is driven by Anderson localization. In this case, the momentum distribution features the emergence of two known emblematic signatures of coherent transport, namely the coherent backscattering (CBS) peak located at $-k_0$ and the coherent forward scattering (CFS) peak located at $k_0$. At long times, the momentum distribution becomes stationary. However, when increasing the defect density, site percolation starts to set in and typical disorder configurations display more and more disconnected clusters of different sizes and shapes. At the same time, the CFS peak starts to oscillate in time with well defined frequencies. These oscillation frequencies represent eigenenergy differences in the regular, disorder-immune, part of the Hamiltonian spectrum. This regular spectrum originates from the small-size magnetic clusters and its weight grows as the system undergoes site percolation and small clusters proliferate. Our system offers a unique spectroscopic signature of cluster formation in site percolation problems.
We propose a comprehensive theoretical description of hysteresis in capillary condensation of gases in mesoporous disordered materials. Applying mean-field density functional theory to a coarse-grained lattice-gas model, we show that the morphology of the hysteresis loops is influenced by out-of-equilibrium transitions that are different on filling and on draining. In particular, desorption may be associated to a depinning process and be percolation-like without explicit pore-blocking effects.
We evaluate the percolation threshold values for a realistic model of continuum segregated systems, where random spherical inclusions forbid the percolating objects, modellized by hard-core spherical particles surrounded by penetrable shells, to occupy large regions inside the composite. We find that the percolation threshold is generally a non-monotonous function of segregation, and that an optimal (i. e., minimum) critical concentration exists well before maximum segregation is reached. We interpret this feature as originating from a competition between reduced available volume effects and e…
We comment on the recent paper "Magnetic Percolation and the Phase Diagram of the disordered RKKY model." D.J. Priour and S. Das Sarma, Phys Rev. Lett.{\bf 97}, 127201 (2006); cond-mat/0606532)
We show that facilitated spin models of cooperative dynamics introduced by Fredrickson and Andersen display on Bethe lattices a glassy behaviour similar to the one predicted by the mode-coupling theory of supercooled liquids and the dynamical theory of mean-field disordered systems. At low temperature such cooperative models show a two-step relaxation and their equilibration time diverges at a finite temperature according to a power-law. The geometric nature of the dynamical arrest corresponds to a bootstrap percolation process which leads to a phase space organization similar to the one of me…
We present a two-dimensional theoretical model for the slow chemical corrosion of a thin film of a disordered solid by suitable etching solutions. This model explain different experimental results showing that the corrosion stops spontaneously in a situation in which the concentration of the etchant is still finite while the corrosion surface develops clear fractal features. We show that these properties are strictly related to the percolation theory, and in particular to its behavior around the critical point. This task is accomplished both by a direct analysis in terms of a self-organized ve…
We show that the effect of disorder on a Mott-Hubbard insulator of interacting electrons produces a quantum phase transition from an antiferromagnetic to a paramagnetic phase governed by a percolation of the singly occupied weakly disordered sites. Near the transition, we propose that a new type of defect, formed by the resonant exchange between a spin singlet and a doubly occupied site with an attractive disorder potential, plays an important role. These resonant pair exchange defects reduce the staggered magnetization but enhance the coupling of the two spins and produce characteristic signa…
We determine the site and bond percolation thresholds for a system of disordered jammed sphere packings in the maximally random jammed state, generated by the Torquato-Jiao algorithm. For the site threshold, which gives the fraction of conducting vs. non-conducting spheres necessary for percolation, we find $p_c = 0.3116(3)$, consistent with the 1979 value of Powell $0.310(5)$ and identical within errors to the threshold for the simple-cubic lattice, 0.311608, which shares the same average coordination number of 6. In terms of the volume fraction $φ$, the threshold corresponds to a critical va…
A double percolation transition is identified in a binary network composed of nanoparticles of magnesium diborade superconductor and chromium oxide half-metallic ferromagnet. Anomalously high-resistance or insulating state, as compared to the conducting or superconducting states in single-component systems of either constituent, is observed between two distinct percolation thresholds. This double percolation effect, which is especially pronounced at liquid helium temperatures, is controlled by composite volume fraction and originates from the suppressed interface conduction and tunneling betwe…
The Bose glass (BG) phase is the Griffiths region of the disordered Bose Hubbard model (BHM), characterized by finite, quasi-superfluid clusters within a Mott insulating background. We propose to utilize this characterization to identify the complete zero-temperature phase diagram of the disordered BHM in $d\ge2$ dimensions by analyzing the geometric properties of what we call superfluid (SF) clusters, which are defined to be clusters of sites with non-integer expectation values for the local boson occupation number. The Mott insulator (MI) phase then is the region in the phase diagram where n…
We study analytically M-spin-flip stable states in disordered short-ranged Ising models (spin glasses and ferromagnets) in all dimensions and for all M. Our approach is primarily dynamical and is based on the convergence of a zero-temperature dynamical process with flips of lattice animals up to size M and starting from a deep quench, to a metastable limit. The results (rigorous and nonrigorous, in infinite and finite volumes) concern many aspects of metastable states: their numbers, basins of attraction, energy densities, overlaps, remanent magnetizations and relations to thermodynamic states…
Phenomenological thermodynamic theory describing the properties of metastable states in disordered ferromagnets and ferroelectrics with frustrative random interactions is developed and its ability to describe various nonergodic phenomena in real crystals is demonstrated.
We consider ferromagnetism in spatially randomly located magnetic moments, as in a diluted magnetic semiconductor, coupled via the carrier-mediated indirect exchange RKKY interaction. We obtain via Monte Carlo the magnetic phase diagram as a function of the impurity moment density $n_{i}$ and the relative carrier concentration $n_{c}/n_{i}$. As evidenced by the diverging correlation length and magnetic susceptibility, the boundary between ferromagnetic (FM) and non-ferromagnetic (NF) phases constitutes a line of zero temperature critical points which can be viewed as a magnetic percolation tra…
We investigate the role of disorder on the fracturing process of heterogeneous materials by means of a two-dimensional fuse network model. Our results in the extreme disorder limit reveal that the backbone of the fracture at collapse, namely the subset of the largest fracture that effectively halts the global current, has a fractal dimension of $1.22 \pm 0.01$. This exponent value is compatible with the universality class of several other physical models, including optimal paths under strong disorder, disordered polymers, watersheds and optimal path cracks on uncorrelated substrates, hulls of …
We investigate the first passage time t_{j,N} to a given chemical or Euclidean distance of the first j of a set of N>>1 independent random walkers all initially placed on a site of a disordered medium. To solve this order-statistics problem we assume that, for short times, the survival probability (the probability that a single random walker is not absorbed by a hyperspherical surface during some time interval) decays for disordered media in the same way as for Euclidean and some class of deterministic fractal lattices. This conjecture is checked by simulation on the incipient percolation aggr…
We consider certain two-dimensional systems with self--dual points including uniform and disordered $q$-state Potts models. For systems with continuous energy density (such as the disordered versions) it is established that the self--dual point exhibits critical behavior: Infinite susceptibility, vanishing magnetization and power law bounds for the decay of correlations.
The phase-ordering kinetics of the ferromagnetic two-dimensional Ising model with uniform bond disorder is investigated by intensive Monte Carlo simulations. Simple ageing behaviour is observed in the single-time correlator and the two-time responses and correlators. The dynamical exponent z and the autocorrelation exponent lambda_C only depend on the ratio eps/T, where eps describes the width of the distribution of the disorder, whereas a more complicated behaviour is found for the non-equilibrium exponent a of the two-time response as well as for the autoresponse exponent lambda_R. The scali…
We discuss some aspects of the non-equilibrium relaxational dynamics which occur after a quench at a disordered critical point. In particular, we focus on the violation of the fluctuation dissipation theorem for local as well as non-local observables and on persistence properties.
We study the electronic structure of the binary alloy and (quantum) percolation model. Our study is based on a self-consistent scheme for the distribution of local Green functions. We obtain detailed results for the density of states, from which the phase diagram of the binary alloy model is constructed, and discuss the existence of a quantum percolation threshold.
We present comprehensive numerical results for domain growth in the two-dimensional {\it Random Bond Ising Model} (RBIM) with nonconserved Glauber kinetics. We characterize the evolution via the {\it domain growth law}, and two-time quantities like the {\it autocorrelation function} and {\it autoresponse function}. Our results clearly establish that the growth law shows a crossover from a pre-asymptotic regime with "power-law growth with a disorder-dependent exponent" to an asymptotic regime with "logarithmic growth". We compare this behavior with previous results on one-dimensional disordered…
Random fields disorder Ising ferromagnets by aligning single spins in the direction of the random field in three space dimensions, or by flipping large ferromagnetic domains at dimensions two and below. While the former requires random fields of typical magnitude similar to the interaction strength, the latter Imry-Ma mechanism only requires infinitesimal random fields. Recently, it has been shown that for dilute anisotropic dipolar systems a third mechanism exists, where the ferromagnetic phase is disordered by finite-size glassy domains at a random field of finite magnitude that is considera…
Using video microscopy, we measure local spatial constraints in disordered binary colloidal samples, ranging from dilute fluids to jammed glasses, and probe their spatial and temporal correlations to local dynamics during the glass transition. We observe the emergence of significant correlations between constraints and local dynamics within the Lindemann criterion, which coincides with the onset of glassy dynamics in supercooled liquids. Rigid domains in fluids are identified based on local constraints, and demonstrate a percolation transition near glass transition, accompanied by the emergenc…
Renyi Mutual information (RMI), computed from second Renyi entropies, can identify classical phase transitions from their finite-size scaling at the critical points. We apply this technique to examine the presence or absence of finite temperature phase transitions in various two-dimensional models on a square lattice, which are extensions of the conventional Ising model by adding a quenched disorder. When the quenched disorder causes the nearest neighbor bonds to be both ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic, (a) a spin glass phase exists only at zero temperature, and (b) a ferromagnetic phase e…
The influence of a strong disorder on the critical dynamics of 3D Heisenberg ferromagnet was investigated by high-resolution quasielastic neutron scattering. A new disorder-induced dynamical critical behavior was found, characterized by its critical exponent z=2.3. The dynamical scaling function appeared mainly unaffected by disorder but its description led to a new parameterization of the Renormalization Group theory, as in the case of pure Nickel.
It was realized two decades ago that the two-dimensional diffusive Fermi liquid phase is unstable against arbitrarily weak electron-electron interactions. Recently, using the nonlinear sigma model developed by Finkelstein, several authors have shown that the instability leads to a ferromagnetic state. In this paper, we consider diffusing electrons interacting through a ferromagnetic exchange interaction. Using the Hartree-Fock approximation to directly calculate the electron self energy, we find that the total energy is minimized by a finite ferromagnetic moment for arbitrarily weak interactio…
We discuss the structure of 2D conformal field theories (CFT) at central charge c=0 describing critical disordered systems, polymers and percolation. We construct a novel extension of the c=0 Virasoro algebra, characterized by a number b measuring the effective number of massless degrees of freedom, and by a logarithmic partner of the stress tensor. It is argued to be present at a generic random critical point, lacking super Kac-Moody, or other higher symmetries, and is a tool to describe and classify such theories. Interestingly, this algebra is not only consistent with, but indeed naturally …
Taking into account the long-ranged spin interactions due to weak localization effects in disordered itinerant ferromagnets the scattering of both electrons and neutrons on critical spin fluctuations near quantum phase transition is considered. It is shown that for the case of low electron density, when k_F ξ\ll 1, where k_F is the Fermi momentum and ξis the magnetic correlation length, the transport cross section of electrons is proportional to conventional critical fluctuations in absence of weak localization effects. However, the intensity of the multiple small-angle neutron scattering beco…
We consider transport properties of disordered two-dimensional electron gases under high perpendicular magnetic field, focusing in particular on the peak longitudinal conductivity $σ_{xx}^\mathrm{peak}$ at the quantum Hall plateau transition. We use a local conductivity model, valid at temperatures high enough such that quantum tunneling is suppressed, taking into account the random drift motion of the electrons in the disordered potential landscape and inelastic processes provided by electron-phonon scattering. A diagrammatic solution of this problem is proposed, which leads to a rich interpl…
We theoretically investigate impurity correlation and magnetic clustering effects on the long-range ferromagnetic ordering in diluted magnetic semiconductors, such as $\textrm{Ga}_{1-x}\textrm{Mn}_{x}\textrm{As}$, using analytical arguments and direct Monte Carlo simulations. We obtain an analytic formula for the ferromagnetic transition temperature $T_{c}$ which becomes asymptotically exact in the strongly disordered, highly dilute (i.e. small $x$) regime. We establish that impurity correlations have only small effects on $T_{c}$ with the neutrally correlated random disorder producing the nom…
It has been suggested that ac conduction in extremely disordered solids occurs on the critical percolation cluster. In this note, we argue that in fact the transport process takes place on the bond invasion percolation cluster (BIPC). The structure of the BIPC is universal independent of the conductances of the bonds, which explains why the rescaled ac conductivity is a universal function of the rescaled frequency. It also explains why the effective-medium approximation provides quantitatively accurate predictions for the effective conductivity.
Electronic properties of disordered binary alloys are studied via the calculation of the average Density of States (DOS) in two and three dimensions. We propose a new approximate scheme that allows for the inclusion of local order effects in finite geometries and extrapolates the behavior of infinite systems following `finite-size scaling' ideas. We particularly investigate the limit of the Quantum Site Percolation regime described by a tight-binding Hamiltonian. This limit was chosen to probe the role of short range order (SRO) properties under extreme conditions. The method is numerically hi…
The resistivity of disordered metallic layer sandwiched by two ferromagnetic layers at low-temperature is investigated theoretically. It is shown that the magnetic field acting at the interface does not affect the classical Boltzmann resistivity but causes a dephasing among electrons in the presence of the spin-orbit interaction, suppressing the anti-localization due to the spin-orbit interaction. The dephasing turns out to be stronger in the case where the magnetization of the two layers is parallel, contributing to a positive magnetoresistance close to a switching field at low temperature.
We analyze low field hysteresis close to the demagnetized state in disordered ferromagnets using the zero temperature random-field Ising model. We solve the demagnetization process exactly in one dimension and derive the Rayleigh law of hysteresis. The initial susceptibility a and the hysteretic coefficient b display a peak as a function of the disorder width. This behavior is confirmed by numerical simulations d=2,3 showing that in limit of weak disorder demagnetization is not possible and the Rayleigh law is not defined. These results are in agreement with experimental observations on nanocr…
We consider random walks (RWs) and self-avoiding walks (SAWs) on disordered lattices directly at the percolation threshold. Applying numerical simulations, we study the scaling behavior of the models on the incipient percolation cluster in space dimensions d=2, 3, 4. Our analysis yields estimates of universal exponents, governing the scaling laws for configurational properties of RWs and SAWs.
After reviewing the basics of the cavity method in classical systems, we show how its quantum version, with some appropriate approximation scheme, can be used to study a system of spins with random ferromagnetic interactions and a random transverse field. The quantum cavity equations describing the ferromagnetic-paramagnetic phase transition can be transformed into the well-known problem of a classical directed polymer in a random medium. The glass transition of this polymer problem translates ino the existence of a `Griffith phase' close to the quantum phase transition of the quantum spin pro…
We apply generalisations of the Swendson-Wang and Wolff cluster algorithms, which are based on the construction of Fortuin-Kasteleyn clusters, to the three-dimensional $\pm 1$ random-bond Ising model. The behaviour of the model is determined by the temperature $T$ and the concentration $p$ of negative (anti-ferromagnetic) bonds. The ground state is ferromagnetic for $0 \le p<p_c$, and a spin glass for $p_c < p \le 0.5$ where $p_c \simeq 0.222$. We investigate the percolation transition of the Fortuin-Kasteleyn clusters as function of temperature. Except for $p=0$ the Fortuin-Kasteleyn percolat…
In structurally disordered ferromagnets the weak random dipole-dipole exchange may transform the polydomain state into a spin-glass one. To some extent the properties of such phase in disordered isotropic ferromagnet can be qualitatively described by the spherical model with the short-range ferromagnetic interaction and weak frustrated infinite-range random-bond exchange. This model is shown to predict that spin-glass phase substitute the ferromagnetic one at the arbitrary small disorder strength and that its thermodynamics has some similarity to that of polydomain state along with some signif…
The competition among spin glass (SG), ferromagnetism and Kondo effect has been analysed in a Kondo lattice model where the inter-site coupling $J_{ij}$ between the localized magnetic moments is given by a generalized Mattis model \cite{Mattis} which represents an interpolation between ferromagnetism and a highly disordered spin glass. Functional integral techniques with of Grassmann fields has been used to obtain the partition function. The static approximation and the replica symmetric ansatz has also been used. The solution of the problem is presented as a phase diagram temperature $T$ {\it…
We develop a lattice mean field theory for ferromagnetic ordering in diluted magnetic semiconductors by taking into account the spatial fluctuations associated with random disorder in the magnetic impurity locations and the finite mean free path associated with low carrier mobilities. Assuming a carrier-mediated indirect RKKY exchange interaction among the magnetic impurities, we find substantial deviation from the extensively used continuum Zener model Weiss mean-field predictions. Our theory allows accurate analytic predictions for Tc, and provides simple explanations for a number of observe…
The existence of a quantum percolation threshold p_q<1 in the 2D quantum site-percolation problem has been a controversial issue for a long time. By means of a highly efficient Chebyshev expansion technique we investigate numerically the time evolution of particle states on finite disordered square lattices with system sizes not reachable up to now. After a careful finite-size scaling, our results for the particle's recurrence probability and the distribution function of the local particle density give evidence that indeed extended states exist in the 2D percolation model for p<1.
We present a numerical study on the thermal activated avalanche dynamics in granular materials composed of ferromagnetic clusters embedded in a non-magnetic matrix. A microscopic dynamical simulation based on the reaction-diffusion process is developed to modeling the magnetization process of such systems. The large-scale simulations presented here explicitly demonstrate inter-granular collective behavior induced by thermal activation of spin tunneling. In particular, we observe an intriguing criticality controlled by the rate of energy dissipation. We show that thermal activated avalanches ca…
We consider the complexity of random ferromagnetic landscapes on the hypercube $\{\pm 1\}^N$ given by Ising models on the complete graph with i.i.d. non-negative edge-weights. This includes, in particular, the case of Bernoulli disorder corresponding to the Ising model on a dense random graph $\mathcal G(N,p)$. Previous results had shown that, with high probability as $N\to\infty$, the gradient search (energy-lowering) algorithm, initialized uniformly at random, converges to one of the homogeneous global minima (all-plus or all-minus). Here, we devise two modified algorithms tailored to explor…
The competition between spin glass, ferromagnetism and Kondo effect is analysed here in a Kondo lattice model with an inter-site random coupling $J_{ij}$ between the localized magnetic moments given by a generalization of the Mattis model which represents an interpolation between ferromagnetism and a highly disordered spin glass. Functional integral techniques with Grassmann fields have been used to obtain the partition function. The static approximation and the replica symmetric ansatz have also been used. The solution of the problem is presented as a phase diagram giving $T/{J}$ {\it versus}…
The basic notion of percolation in physics assumes the emergence of a giant connected (percolation) cluster in a large disordered system when the density of connections exceeds some critical value. Until recently, the percolation phase transitions were believed to be continuous, however, in 2009, a remarkably different, discontinuous phase transition was reported in a new so-called "explosive percolation" problem. Each link in this problem is established by a specific optimization process. Here, employing strict analytical arguments and numerical calculations, we find that in fact the "explosi…
The magnetic properties of disordered graphene and irradiated graphite are systematically studied using a combination of mean-field Hubbard model and first-principles calculations. By considering large-scale disordered models of graphene, I conclude that only single-atom defects can induce ferromagnetism in graphene-based materials. The preserved stacking order of graphene layers is shown to be another necessary condition for achieving a finite net magnetic moment of irradiated graphite. Ab initio calculations of hydrogen binding and diffusion and of interstitial-vacancy recombination further …
