Interrupted coarsening in a driven kinetically constrained Ising chain

TL;DR

This paper studies a driven 1D kinetically constrained Ising chain, showing that driving interrupts coarsening and stabilizes the system, with an analytical theory matching simulation results.

Contribution

It introduces a driven version of the model and provides an analytical theory for its steady state, which was not previously understood.

Findings

Driving interrupts coarsening in the chain.

Steady state is analogous to a coarsening chain of age 1/gamma_dot.

Analytical theory agrees well with simulations.

Abstract

We introduce a driven version of the 1D kinetically constrained spin chain. In its original undriven version, this model shows anomalous coarsening following a quench to a low temperature, with an equilibration time that diverges as exp(1/T^2) for T\to 0. We show that driving of constant rate gamma_dot interrupts coarsening and stabilises the chain in a state analogous to that of a coarsening chain of age 1/gamma_dot. We present an analytical theory for this steady state, and demonstrate it to be in excellent agreement with our simulation results.