Critical scaling of the mutual information in two-dimensional disordered Ising models

TL;DR

This paper uses Renyi Mutual Information to analyze phase transitions in disordered 2D Ising models, revealing the presence or absence of finite-temperature transitions and identifying critical points through finite-size scaling.

Contribution

It demonstrates the effectiveness of RMI in detecting phase transitions in disordered Ising models and characterizes the conditions for zero and finite temperature phases.

Findings

Spin glass phase exists only at zero temperature.

Finite temperature ferromagnetic phase occurs with dilute antiferromagnetic bonds.

RMI curves identify critical temperatures via crossing points.

Abstract

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 exists at a finite temperature when the antiferromagnetic bond distributions are sufficiently dilute. Furthermore, finite temperature paramagnetic-ferromagnetic transitions can also occur when the disordered bonds involve only ferromagnetic couplings of random strengths. In our numerical simulations, the "zero temperature only" phase transitions are identified when there is no consistent finite-size scaling of the RMI curves, while for finite temperature critical points, the curves can identify the critical temperature $T_c$ by their crossings at $T_c$ and $2\, T_c $.