Energy barriers of spin glasses from multi-overlap simulations

TL;DR

This paper uses multi-overlap Monte Carlo simulations to analyze energy barriers and the distribution of the Parisi overlap parameter in 3D spin glasses, providing insights into free-energy barriers and phase behavior.

Contribution

The study introduces a multi-overlap Monte Carlo algorithm for fixed-temperature simulations, enabling detailed analysis of overlap distributions and energy barriers in spin glasses.

Findings

Efficient estimation of free-energy barriers in spin glasses.

Observation of non-trivial scaling of overlap distributions.

Demonstration of the algorithm's performance in complex energy landscapes.

Abstract

We report large-scale simulations of the three-dimensional Edwards-Anderson Ising spin glass system using the recently introduced multi-overlap Monte Carlo algorithm. In this approach the temperature is fixed and two replica are coupled through a weight factor such that a broad distribution of the Parisi overlap parameter $q$ is achieved. Canonical expectation values for the entire $q$-range (multi-overlap) follow by reweighting. We present an analysis of the performance of the algorithm and in particular discuss results on spin glass free-energy barriers which are hard to obtain with conventional algorithms. In addition we discuss the non-trivial scaling behavior of the canonical $q$-distributions in the broken phase.