Out-of-equilibrium critical dynamics at surfaces: Cluster dissolution and non-algebraic correlations

TL;DR

This paper investigates the nonequilibrium critical dynamics at surfaces, revealing that rapid surface correlation decay leads to unique short-time behaviors and cluster dissolution phenomena, differing from bulk dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of cluster dissolution at free surfaces during critical quenches, showing a new universal short-time behavior and non-algebraic correlations.

Findings

Surface correlations decay faster than in the bulk.

Cluster dissolution leads to stretched exponential decay.

Phenomena observed in the 3D Ising model are experimentally relevant.

Abstract

We study nonequilibrium dynamical properties at a free surface after the system is quenched from the high-temperature phase into the critical point. We show that if the spatial surface correlations decay sufficiently rapidly the surface magnetization and/or the surface manifold autocorrelations has a qualitatively different universal short time behavior than the same quantities in the bulk. At a free surface cluster dissolution may take place instead of domain growth yielding stationary dynamical correlations that decay in a stretched exponential form. This phenomenon takes place in the three-dimensional Ising model and should be observable in real ferromagnets.