From dynamical scaling to local scale-invariance: a tutorial

TL;DR

This tutorial explores the extension of dynamical scaling to local scale-invariance, focusing on Schr"odinger-invariance and ageing-invariance, with applications to non-equilibrium systems like interface growth and ferromagnets.

Contribution

It introduces the theoretical framework of local scale-invariance, including Lie algebra constructions and representations, and applies these concepts to non-equilibrium models.

Findings

Explicit predictions for responses and correlators in interface growth.

Validation of ageing-invariance in Glauber-Ising and spherical models.

Extension of dynamical symmetries to more general non-equilibrium equations.

Abstract

Dynamical scaling arises naturally in various many-body systems far from equilibrium. After a short historical overview, the elements of possible extensions of dynamical scaling to a local scale-invariance will be introduced. Schr\"odinger-invariance, the most simple example of local scale-invariance, will be introduced as a dynamical symmetry in the Edwards-Wilkinson universality class of interface growth. The Lie algebra construction, its representations and the Bargman superselection rules will be combined with non-equilibrium Janssen-de Dominicis field-theory to produce explicit predictions for responses and correlators, which can be compared to the results of explicit model studies. At the next level, the study of non-stationary states requires to go over, from Schr\"odinger-invariance, to ageing-invariance. The ageing algebra admits new representations, which acts as dynamical symmetries on more general equations, and imply that each non-equilibrium scaling operator is characterised by two distinct, independent scaling dimensions. Tests of ageing-invariance are described, in the Glauber-Ising and spherical models of a phase-ordering ferromagnet and the Arcetri model of interface growth.