Effective-medium theory for elastic systems with correlated disorder
ICTP South American Institute for Fundamental Research（ICTP南美基础研究所）；Instituto de Física Teórica, Universidade Estadual Paulista（圣保罗州立大学理论物理研究所）；Department of Physics, Cornell University（康奈尔大学物理系）
Jorge M. Escobar-Agudelo, Rui Aquino, Danilo B. Liarte
Correlated structures are intimately connected to intriguing phenomena exhibited by a variety of disordered systems such as soft colloidal gels, bio-polymer networks and colloidal suspensions near a shear jamming transition. The universal critical behavior of these systems near the onset of rigidity is often described by traditional approaches as the coherent potential approximation - a versatile version of effective-medium theory that nevertheless have hitherto lacked key ingredients to describe disorder spatial correlations. Here we propose a multi-purpose generalization of the coherent potential approximation to describe the mechanical behavior of elastic networks with spatially-correlated disorder. We apply our theory to a simple rigidity-percolation model for colloidal gels and study the effects of correlations in both the critical point and the overall scaling behavior. We find that although the presence of spatial correlations (mimicking attractive interactions of gels) shifts the critical packing fraction to lower values, suggesting sub-isostatic behavior, the critical coordination number of the associated network remains isostatic. More importantly, we discuss how our theory can be employed to describe a large variety of systems with spatially-correlated disorder.
We address the effect of disorder geometry on the critical force in disordered elastic systems. We focus on the model system of a long-range elastic line driven in a random landscape. In the collective pinning regime, we compute the critical force perturbatively. Not only our expression for the critical force confirms previous results on its scaling with respect to the microscopic disorder parameters, it also provides its precise dependence on the disorder geometry (represented by the disorder two-point correlation function). Our results are successfully compared to the results of numerical si…
Isostatic networks are minimally rigid and therefore have, generically, nonzero elastic moduli. Regular isostatic networks have finite moduli in the limit of large sizes. However, numerical simulations show that all elastic moduli of geometrically disordered isostatic networks go to zero with system size. This holds true for positional as well as for topological disorder. In most cases, elastic moduli decrease as inverse power-laws of system size. On directed isostatic networks, however, of which the square and cubic lattices are particular cases, the decrease of the moduli is exponential with…
Geometrically frustrated materials have a ground-state degeneracy that may be lifted by subtle effects, such as higher order interactions causing small energetic preferences for ordered structures. Alternatively, ordering may result from entropic differences between configurations in an effect termed order-by-disorder. Motivated by recent experiments in a frustrated colloidal system in which ordering is suspected to result from entropy, we consider in this paper, the antiferromagnetic Ising model on a deformable triangular lattice. We calculate the displacements exactly at the microscopic leve…
We investigate the roughening phase transition of a $(3+1)$-dimensional elastic manifold driven by the completion between a periodic pinning potential and a randomly distributed impurities. The elastic manifold is modeled by a solid-on-solid type interface model, and universal features of the transition from a flat phase (for strong periodic potential) to a rough phase (for strong disorder) are studied at zero temperature using a combinatorial optimization algorithm technique. We find a {\it continuous} transition with a set of numerically estimated critical exponents that we compare with anal…
For disordered elastic manifolds in the ground state (equilibrium) we obtain the critical exponents for the roughness and the correction-to-scaling up to 3-loop order, i.e. third order in $ε=4-d$, where $d$ is the internal dimension $d$. We also give the full 2-point function up to order $ε^{2}$, i.e. at 2-loop order.
We study elastic systems such as interfaces or lattices pinned by correlated quenched disorder considering two different types of correlations: generalized columnar disorder and quenched defects correlated as ~ x^{-a} for large separation x. Using functional renormalization group methods, we obtain the critical exponents to two-loop order and calculate the response to a transverse field h. The correlated disorder violates the statistical tilt symmetry resulting in nonlinear response to a tilt. Elastic systems with columnar disorder exhibit a transverse Meissner effect: disorder generates the c…
Recent progress in approaches to determine the elastic constants of solids starting from the microscopic particle interactions is reviewed. On the theoretical side, density functional theory approaches are discussed and compared to more classical ones using the actual pair potentials. On the experimental side, video microscopy has been introduced to measure the elastic constants in colloidal solids. For glasses and disordered systems, the theoretical basis is given for this novel technique, and some challenges and recent advances are reviewed.
Disordered biopolymer gels have striking mechanical properties including strong nonlinearities. In the case of athermal gels (such as collagen-I) the nonlinearity has long been associated with a crossover from a bending dominated to a stretching dominated regime of elasticity. The physics of this crossover is related to the existence of a central-force isostatic point and to the fact that for most gels the bending modulus is small. This crossover induces scaling behavior for the elastic moduli. In particular, for linear elasticity such a scaling law has been demonstrated [Broedersz et al. Natu…
We analyze the large-scale dynamics of vortex lattices and charge density waves driven in a disordered potential. Using a perturbative coarse-graining procedure we present an explicit derivation of non-equilibrium terms in the renormalized equation of motion, in particular Kardar-Parisi-Zhang non-linearities and dynamic strain terms. We demonstrate the absence of glassy features like diverging linear friction coefficients and transverse critical currents in the drifting state. We discuss the structure of the dynamical phase diagram containing different elastic phases very small and very large …
Using the Martin-Siggia-Rose method, we study propagation of acoustic waves in strongly heterogeneous media which are characterized by a broad distribution of the elastic constants. Gaussian-white distributed elastic constants, as well as those with long-range correlations with non-decaying power-law correlation functions, are considered. The study is motivated in part by a recent discovery that the elastic moduli of rock at large length scales may be characterized by long-range power-law correlation functions. Depending on the disorder, the renormalization group (RG) flows exhibit a transitio…
We study the statics and dynamics of an elastic manifold in a disordered medium with quenched defects correlated as r^{-a} for large separation r. We derive the functional renormalization-group equations to one-loop order, which allow us to describe the universal properties of the system in equilibrium and at the depinning transition. Using a double epsilon=4-d and delta=4-a expansion, we compute the fixed points characterizing different universality classes and analyze their regions of stability. The long-range disorder-correlator remains analytic but generates short-range disorder whose corr…
We evaluate the mean escape time of overdamped particles over potential barriers in short-correlated quenched Gaussian disorder potentials in one dimension at low temperature. The thermally activated escape is very sensitive to the form of the \emph{tail} of the potential barrier probability distribution. We evaluate this tail by using the optimal fluctuation method. For monotone decreasing autocovariances we reproduce the tail obtained by Lopatin and Vinokur (2001). However, for nonmonotonic autocovariances of the disorder potential we show that the tail changes. It is much higher when the di…
We investigate the explicit renormalization group for fermionic field theoretic representation of two-dimensional random bond Ising model with long-range correlated disorder. We show that a new fixed point appears by introducing a long-range correlated disorder. Such as the one has been observed in previous works for the bosonic ($ϕ^4$) description. We have calculated the correlation length exponent and the anomalous scaling dimension of fermionic fields at this fixed point. Our results are in agreement with the extended Harris criterion derived by Weinrib and Halperin.
The competing effect of a periodic pinning potential and random point disorder is studied for arrays of elastic lines or directed polymers. The groundstates are investigated by exact combinatorial optimization. In both two and three dimensions a phase diagram is found with two or three distinct phases: a strictly flat phase if the disorder is bounded and weak, a weakly fluctuating phase for intermediate valleys depths, where the lines roughen individually on a scale smaller than the line-line distance, and a rough phase for strong disorder, where the roughness follows the scaling with pure poi…
We study a canonical many-body-localized (MBL) system with power-law-correlated disorders: $s=\frac{1}{2}$ spin chain in a random magnetic field. The power-law-correlated disorder can control the critical regime between the MBL and thermal (ergodic) phases by varying its exponent, and it let us investigate the MBL transitions in detail. Static-eigenstate and dynamic properties of MBL are studied by numerical methods for systems with various long-range correlations. By using energy-resolved distribution of the participation ratio (PR) and calculating some physical quantities related to localiza…
A field-theoretical description of the behavior of disordered, elastically isotropic, compressible systems characterized by two order parameters at the bicritical and tetracritical points is presented. The description is performed in the two-loop approximation in three dimensions . The renormalization group equations are analyzed, and the fixed points corresponding to different types of multicritical behavior are determined. It is shown that the effect of elastic deformations causes a change in the regime of the tetracritical behavior of disordered systems because of the interaction of the ord…
The density and correlations of topological defects are investigated numerically in a model of a d=2 elastic medium subject to a periodic quenched random potential. The computed density of defects decreases approximately exponentially with the defect core energy. Comparing the defect-free ground state with the ground state with defects, it is found that the difference is described by string-like excitations, bounded by defect pairs, which have a fractal dimension of 1.250(3). At zero temperature, the disorder-induced defects screen the interaction of introduced vortex pairs.
We consider the $\pm J$ Ising model on a cubic lattice with a gauge-invariant disorder distribution. Disorder depends on a parameter $β_G$ that plays the role of a chemical potential for the amount of frustration. We study the model at a specific value of the disorder parameter $β_G$, where frustration shows long-range correlations. We characterize the universality class, obtaining accurate estimates of the critical exponents: $ν= 0.655(15)$ and $η_q = 1.05(5)$, where $η_q$ is the overlap susceptibility exponent.
We analyze the harmonic elastic string driven through a continuous random potential above the depinning threshold. The velocity exponent beta = 0.33(2) is calculated. We observe a crossover in the roughness exponent zeta from the critical value 1.26 to the asymptotic (large force) value of 0.5. We calculate directly the velocity correlation function and the corresponding correlation length exponent nu = 1.29(5), which obeys the scaling relation nu = 1/(2-zeta), and agrees with the finite-size-scaling exponent of fluctuations in the critical force. The velocity correlation function is non-unive…
Domain walls in magnets, vortex lattices in superconductors, contact lines at depinning, and many other systems can be modelled as an elastic system subject to quenched disorder. Its field theory possesses a well-controlled perturbative expansion around its upper critical dimension. Contrary to standard field theory, the renormalization group flow involves a function, the disorder correlator $Δ(w)$, therefore termed the functional renormalization group (FRG). $Δ(w)$ is a physical observable, the auto-correlation function of the centre of mass of the elastic manifold. In this review, we give a …
A field-theoretic approach is applied to describe behavior of three-dimensional, weakly disordered, elastically isotropic, compressible systems with long-range interactions at various values of a long-range interaction parameter. Renormalization-group equations are analyzed in the two-loop approximation by using the Pade-Borel summation technique. The fixed points corresponding to critical and tricritical behavior of the systems are determined. Elastic deformations are shown to changes in critical and tricritical behavior of disordered compressible systems with long-range interactions. The cri…
We briefly introduce the generic framework of Disordered Elastic Systems (DES), giving a short `recipe' of a DES modeling and presenting the quantities of interest in order to probe the static and dynamical disorder-induced properties of such systems. We then focus on a particular low-dimensional DES, namely the one-dimensional interface in short-ranged elasticity and short-ranged quenched disorder. Illustrating different elements given in the introductory sections, we discuss specifically the consequences of the interplay between a finite temperature T>0 and a finite interface width ξ>0 on th…
We consider the Ising model on the square lattice with biaxially correlated random ferromagnetic couplings, the critical point of which is fixed by self-duality. The disorder represents a relevant perturbation according to the extended Harris criterion. Critical properties of the system are studied by large scale Monte Carlo simulations. The correlation length critical exponent, ν=2.005(5), corresponds to that expected in a system with isotropic correlated long-range disorder, whereas the scaling dimension of the magnetization density, x_m=0.1294(7), is somewhat larger than in the pure system.…
Using numerical approach developed recently we obtained the transverse dynamic structure factor for the spin-1/2 transverse XX chain with correlated Lorentzian disorder.
The $q$-state Potts model with a long-range correlated disorder is studied by means of large-scale Monte Carlo simulations for $q=2,4,8$ and 16. Evidence is given of the existence of a Griffiths phase, where the thermodynamic quantities display an algebraic Finite-Size Scaling, in a finite range of temperatures around the self-dual point. The critical exponents are shown to depend on both the temperature and the exponent of the algebraic decay of disorder correlations, but not on the number of states of the Potts model. The mechanism leading to the violation of hyperscaling relations is observ…
We study the transition from a many-body localized phase to an ergodic phase in spin chain with correlated random magnetic fields. Using multiple statistical measures like gap statistics and extremal entanglement spectrum distributions, we find the phase diagram in the disorder-correlation plane, where the transition happens at progressively larger values of the correlation with increasing values of disorder. We then show that one can use the average of sample variance of magnetic fields as a single parameter which encodes the effects of the correlated disorder. The distributions and averages …
We study the effect of disorder on quantum Hall smectics within the framework of an elastic theory. Based on a renormalization group calculation, we derive detailed results for the degrees of translational and orientational order of the stripe pattern at zero temperature and carefully map out the disorder and length-scale regimes in which the system effectively exhibits smectic, nematic, or isotropic behavior. We show that disorder always leads to a finite density of free dislocations and estimate the scale on which they begin to appear.
Motivated by a freely suspended graphene and polymerized membranes in soft and biological matter we present a detailed study of a tensionless elastic sheet in the presence of thermal fluctuations and quenched disorder. The manuscript is based on an extensive draft dating back to 1993, that was circulated privately. It presents the general theoretical framework and calculational details of numerous results, partial forms of which have been published in brief Letters (Le Doussal and Radzihovsky 1992). The experimental realization of atom-thin graphene sheets has driven a resurgence in this fasci…
The simultaneous effect of both disorder and crystal-lattice pinning on the equilibrium behavior of oriented elastic objects is studied using scaling arguments and a functional renormalization group technique. Our analysis applies to elastic manifolds, e.g., interfaces, as well as to periodic elastic media, e.g., charge-density waves or flux-line lattices. The competition between both pinning mechanisms leads to a continuous, disorder driven roughening transition between a flat state where the mean relative displacement saturates on large scales and a rough state with diverging relative displa…
The pinning of an inhomogeneous elastic medium by a disordered substrate is studied analytically and numerically. The static and dynamic properties of a $D$-dimensional system are shown to be equivalent to those of the well known problem of a $D$-dimensional random manifold embedded in $(D+D)$-dimensions. The analogy is found to be very robust, applicable to a wide range of elastic media, including those which are amorphous or nearly-periodic, with local or nonlocal elasticity. Also demonstrated explicitly is the equivalence between the dynamic depinning transition obtained at a constant drivi…
We study the growth of a crystal in presence of a correlated disorder on the substrate. Using functional renormalization group, we show, for a long range disorder correlation, an initial decay of the KPZ type nonlinearity, though over a large length scale the behavior can be governed by the nonlinearity.
We address the critical properties of the many-body localization (MBL) phase transition in one-dimensional systems subject to spatially correlated disorder. We consider a general family of disorder models, parameterized by how strong the fluctuations of the disordered couplings are when coarse-grained over a region of size $\ell$. For uncorrelated randomness, the characteristic scale for these fluctuations is $\sqrt{\ell}$; more generally they scale as $\ell^γ$. We discuss both positively correlated disorder ($1/2 < γ< 1$) and anticorrelated, or "hyperuniform," disorder ($γ< 1/2$). We argue th…
The complicated interactions in presence of disorder lead to a correlated randomization of states. The Hamiltonian as a result behaves like a multi-parametric random matrix with correlated elements. We show that the eigenvalue correlations of these matrices can be described by the single parametric Brownian ensembles. The analogy helps us to reveal many important features of the level-statistics in interacting systems e.g. a critical point behavior different from that of non-interacting systems, the possibility of extended states even in one dimension and a universal formulation of level corre…
The correct detection of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transition in quasi-two-dimensional superconductors still remains a controversial issue. Its main signatures, indeed, are often at odds with the theoretical expectations. In a recent work\cite{me} we have shown that the presence of spatially correlated disorder plays a key role in this sense being it the reason underlying the experimentally-observed smearing of the universal superfluid-density jump. In the present paper, we closely investigate the effects of correlated disorder on the BKT transition, addressing specifically the…
Using a weak-disorder scheme and real-space renormalization-group techniques, we obtain analytical results for the critical behavior of various q-state Potts models with correlated disordered exchange interactions along d1 of d spatial dimensions on hierarchical (Migdal-Kadanoff) lattices. Our results indicate qualitative differences between the cases d-d1=1 (for which we find nonphysical random fixed points, suggesting the existence of nonperturbative fixed distributions) and d-d1>1 (for which we do find acceptable perturbartive random fixed points), in agreement with previous numerical calcu…
We consider a mean-field model of coupled phase oscillators with quenched disorder in the coupling strengths and natural frequencies. When these two kinds of disorder are uncorrelated (and when the positive and negative couplings are equal in number and strength), it is known that phase coherence cannot occur and synchronization is absent. Here we explore the effects of correlating the disorder. Specifically, we assume that any given oscillator either attracts or repels all the others, and that the sign of the interaction is deterministically correlated with the given oscillator's natural freq…
We study the scaling laws of diffusion in two-dimensional media with long-range correlated disorder through exact enumeration of random walks. The disordered medium is modelled by percolation clusters with correlations decaying with the distance as a power law, $r^{-a}$, generated with the improved Fourier filtering method. To characterize this type of disorder, we determine the percolation threshold $p_{\text c}$ by investigating cluster-wrapping probabilities. At $p_{\text c}$, we estimate the (sub-diffusive) walk dimension $d_{\text w}$ for different correlation exponents $a$. Above $p_{\te…
We consider the three-dimensional site-diluted Ising model with power-law correlated defects and study the critical behavior of the second-moment correlation length and the magnetic susceptibility in the high-temperature phase. By comparing, for various defect correlation strengths, the extracted critical exponents $ν$ and $γ$ with the results of our previous finite-size scaling study, we consolidate the exponent estimates.
Two-loop massive Feynman integrals for $ϕ^4$ field-theoretical model with long-range correlated disorder are considered. Massive integrals for the vertex function $Γ^{(4)}$ including two or three massless propagators for generic space dimension and for any value of the correlation parameter are evaluated analytically applying Mellin-Barnes method as well as familiar representation for one-loop integrals. Obtained expressions are presented in the form of hypergeometric functions.
