Metastability and Avalanches in a Nonequilibrium Ferromagnetic System

TL;DR

This paper investigates the metastable behavior and avalanche phenomena in a nonequilibrium ferromagnetic system, revealing non-monotonous lifetime dependence on temperature and scale-free avalanche distributions, with potential implications for real ferromagnetic nanoparticles.

Contribution

It introduces the study of metastability and avalanches in a nonequilibrium ferromagnetic model, highlighting novel temperature-dependent lifetime behavior and power-law avalanche distributions.

Findings

Metastable lifetime peaks at a non-zero temperature depending on nonequilibrium strength.

Avalanches during decay follow power-law size and lifetime distributions.

Scale-free avalanche behavior may be observable in real impure ferromagnetic nanoparticles.

Abstract

We present preliminary results on the metastable behavior of a nonequilibrium ferromagnetic system. The metastable state mean lifetime is a non-monotonous function of temperature; it shows a maximum at certain non-zero temperature which depends on the strengh of the nonequilibrium perturbation. This is in contrast with the equilibrium case in which lifetime increases monotonously as the temperature is decreasesed. We also report on avalanches during the decay from the metastable state. Assuming both free boundaries and nonequilibrium impurities, the avalanches exhibit power-law size and lifetime distributions. Such scale free behavior is very sensible. The chances are that our observations may be observable in real (i.e. impure) ferromagnetic nanoparticles.