Fixed points and crossovers for the hysteresis scaling of dynamic mean-field models

TL;DR

This paper investigates universal scaling behaviors and fixed points in hysteresis phenomena of dynamic mean-field models during first-order phase transitions, revealing new exponents and universality classes through systematic analysis.

Contribution

It uncovers new scaling exponents and universality classes in hysteresis of mean-field models, extending understanding of first-order phase transition scaling behaviors.

Findings

Discovered a new exponent for large driving rates from critical phenomena.

Identified multiple universality classes governed by different fixed points.

Validated universal scaling and curve collapse through numerical simulations.

Abstract

Phase transitions are divided into first-order phase transitions and continuous ones in current classification. While the latter shows striking phenomena of scaling and universality, the former is generically characterized by discontinuous jumps in extensive variables and pronounced hysteresis. Recent studies have demonstrated universal scaling behavior controlled by a cubic fixed point in first-order phase transitions. However, more recent investigations into the hysteresis in a dynamic mean-field quartic model driven through its first-order phase transitions have revealed new scaling exponents for different driving rates. Here, we discover a new exponent for large driving rates arising surprisingly from critical phenomena and show that, depending on the magnitude of the driving rates and on the absence or presence of noise, the same mean-field model remarkably exhibits several universality classes with definite universal scaling exponents governed by their corresponding fixed points through a systematic scaling analysis based on renormalization group theory. The theories and their various crossovers between different fixed points along with complete universal scaling of full curve collapse are verified by numerical results. This further confirms universal scaling in first-order phase transitions.