Arrested States formed on Quenching Spin Chains with Competing Interactions and Conserved Dynamics

TL;DR

This paper investigates how rapid cooling of a spin chain with competing interactions leads to various metastable arrested states, including inhomogeneous mixtures with unique relaxation dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces the formation of arrested states with inhomogeneous active and quiescent regions in quenched spin chains with conserved dynamics and competing interactions.

Findings

Metastable arrested states depend on interaction competition

Inhomogeneous states show stretched exponential autocorrelation decay

Two-step relaxation observed near critical temperature

Abstract

We study the effects of rapidly cooling to T = 0 a spin chain with conserved dynamics and competing interactions. Depending on the degree of competition, the system is found to get arrested in different kinds of metastable states. The most interesting of these has an inhomogeneous mixture of interspersed active and quiescent regions. In this state, the steady-state autocorrelation function decays as a stretched exponential $\sim \exp(-{(t/\tau_{o})}^{{1}\over{3}})$, and there is a two-step relaxation to equilibrium when the temperature is raised slightly.