Discontinuous transitions can survive to quenched disorder in a 2-dimensional nonequilibrium system

TL;DR

This study investigates how quenched disorder impacts discontinuous nonequilibrium phase transitions in a 2D system, finding that such disorder does not eliminate the transition, contrary to common expectations.

Contribution

It demonstrates that quenched disorder can preserve discontinuous transitions in a 2D nonequilibrium system, specifically in the Naming Game model.

Findings

Quenched disorder does not destroy the discontinuous transition.

Finite-size scaling confirms the robustness of the transition.

Temporal dynamics show persistence of the transition near the critical point.

Abstract

We explore the effects that quenched disorder has on discontinuous nonequilibrium phase transitions into absorbing states. We focus our analysis on the Naming Game model, a nonequilibrium low-dimensional system with different absorbing states. The results obtained by means of the finite-size scaling analysis and from the study of the temporal dynamics of the density of active sites near the transition point evidence that the spatial quenched disorder does not destroy the discontinuous transition.