Solvable glassy system: static versus dynamical transition

TL;DR

This paper investigates a phase transition in a directed polymer system with random ridges, revealing a static-glassy transition and a dynamical transition with asymmetry, characterized by a complex phase space structure.

Contribution

It introduces a solvable model of a glassy system showing both static and dynamical transitions, with detailed analysis of phase space structure and transition behavior.

Findings

Existence of a static glassy phase with many narrow states.

Identification of a sharp dynamical transition during equilibration.

Asymmetry between cooling and heating processes in the phase transition.

Abstract

A directed polymer is considered on a flat substrate with randomly located parallel ridges. It prefers to lie inside wide regions between the ridges. When the transversel width $W=\exp(\lambda L^{1/3})$ is exponential in the longitudinal length $L$, there can be a large number $\sim \exp L^{1/3}$ of available wide states. This ``complexity'' causes a phase transition from a high temperature phase where the polymer lies in the widest lane, to a glassy low temperature phase where it lies in one of many narrower lanes. Starting from a uniform initial distribution of independent polymers, equilibration up to some exponential time scale induces a sharp dynamical transition. When the temperature is slowly increased with time, this occurs at a tunable temperature. There is an asymmetry between cooling and heating. The structure of phase space in the low temperature non-equilibrium glassy phase is of a one-level tree.