Aging in Disordered Systems

TL;DR

This paper reviews the slow, aging dynamics in strongly disordered systems, emphasizing Monte Carlo studies of glassy behavior and history-dependent properties at low temperatures.

Contribution

It provides an overview of recent research on aging phenomena in disordered systems, focusing on Monte Carlo simulation results.

Findings

Aging effects cause history-dependent measurement outcomes.

Disordered systems exhibit extremely slow dynamics at low temperatures.

Monte Carlo methods are crucial for studying glassy behavior.

Abstract

The dynamics of strongly disordered systems becomes extremely slow or glassy at low temperatures, which results in a characteristic aging scenario. This means that the outcome of measurements strongly depends on the history of the system within the glassy phase, even on macroscopic time scale like hours, weeks or years. This area of non-equilibrium dynamics in disordered systems became recently a major focus of research interest, in particular with respect to spin glasses and related systems. Here we give an overview on these activities with a focus on Monte Carlo studies.