Ordering dynamics in the presence of multiple phases

TL;DR

This paper investigates the non-equilibrium ordering dynamics of the 2D Potts model with multiple phases after a quench below the transition temperature, highlighting metastable states and their properties.

Contribution

It provides a numerical analysis of quenches in the 2D Potts model with multiple phases, focusing on metastability and energy decay behaviors.

Findings

Metastable states persist for a certain time with constant energy

Self-correlation functions decay rapidly in metastable states

Energy remains above equilibrium energy during metastability

Abstract

The dynamics of the 2D Potts ferromagnet when quenched below the transition temperature is investigated in the case of discontinuous phase transition, which is interesting for understandingthe non equilibrium dynamics of systems with many competing equivalent low temperature phases, that appears to be not much explored. After briefly reviewing some recent findings, we focus on the numerical study of quenches just below the transition temperature on square lattices. We show that, up to a certain time, metastable states can be observed for which energy stays constant above the equilibrium energy and the self-correlation function displays a fast decay.