Coarsening in 2D slabs

Abstract

We study coarsening; that is, the zero-temperature limit of Glauber dynamics in the standard Ising model on slabs S_k = Z^2 x {0, ..., k-1} of all thicknesses k \geq 2 (with free and periodic boundary conditions in the third coordinate). We show that with free boundary conditions, for k \geq 3, some sites fixate for large times and some do not, whereas for k=2, all sites fixate. With periodic boundary conditions, for k \geq 4, some sites fixate and others do not, while for k=2 and 3, all sites fixate.