Metastability and spinodal points for a random walker on a triangle

TL;DR

This paper studies a simple random walker model on a triangle with non-local boundary conditions, revealing metastability, spinodal points, and universal spectral properties related to symmetry breaking and critical phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces a minimal model exhibiting spontaneous symmetry breaking, metastability, and spinodal points, with analytical and numerical analysis of its spectral and scaling properties.

Findings

Identification of metastable and stable phases.

Discovery of a universal band of excitations at the spinodal point.

Universal scaling behavior at the spinodal point.

Abstract

We investigate time-dependent properties of a single particle model in which a random walker moves on a triangle and is subjected to non-local boundary conditions. This model exhibits spontaneous breaking of a Z_2 symmetry. The reduced size of the configuration space (compared to related many-particle models that also show spontaneous symmetry breaking) allows us to study the spectrum of the time-evolution operator. We break the symmetry explicitly and find a stable phase, and a meta-stable phase which vanishes at a spinodal point. At this point, the spectrum of the time evolution operator has a gapless and universal band of excitations with a dynamical critical exponent z=1. Surprisingly, the imaginary parts of the eigenvalues E_j(L) are equally spaced, following the rule Im E_j(L)\propto j/L. Away from the spinodal point, we find two time scales in the spectrum. These results are related to scaling functions for the mean path of the random walker and to first passage times. For the spinodal point, we find universal scaling behavior. A simplified version of the model which can be handled analytically is also presented.