arXiv subjects

F. van Wijland

Publications and source records attributed to F. van Wijland.

32 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2003

Infinitely-many absorbing-state nonequilibrium phase transitions

We present a general field-theoretic strategy to analyze three connected families of continuous phase transitions which occur in nonequilibrium steady-states. We focus on transitions taking place between an active state and one absorbing state, when there exist an infinite number of such absorbing states. In such transitions the order parameter is coupled to an auxiliary field. Three situations arise according to whether the auxiliary field is diffusive and conserved, static and conserved, or finally static and not conserved.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2003

Magnetization distribution in the transverse Ising chain with energy flux

The zero-temperature transverse Ising chain carrying an energy flux j_E is studied with the aim of determining the nonequilibrium distribution functions, P(M_z) and P(M_x), of its transverse and longitudinal magnetizations, respectively. An exact calculation reveals that P(M_z) is a Gaussian both at j_E=0 and j_E not equal 0, and the width of the distribution decreases with increasing energy flux. The distribution of the order-parameter fluctuations, P(M_x), is evaluated numerically for spin-chains of up to 20 spins. For the equilibrium case (j_E=0), we find the expected Gaussian fluctuations away from the critical point while the critical order-parameter fluctuations are shown to be non-gaussian with a scaling function Phi(x)=Phi(M_x/ )= P(M_x) strongly dependent on the boundary conditions. When j_E not equal 0, the system displays long-range, oscillating correlations but P(M_x) is a Gaussian nevertheless, and the width of the Gaussian decreases with increasing j_E. In particular, we find that, at critical transverse field, the width has a j_E^(-3/8) asymptotic in the j_E -> 0 limit.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2002

Universality class of nonequilibrium phase transitions with infinitely many-absorbing-states

We consider systems whose steady-states exhibit a nonequilibrium phase transition from an active state to one -among an infinite number- absorbing state, as some control parameter is varied across a threshold value. The pair contact process, stochastic fixed-energy sandpiles, activated random walks and many other cellular automata or reaction-diffusion processes are covered by our analysis. We argue that the upper critical dimension below which anomalous fluctuation driven scaling appears is d_c=6, in contrast to a widespread belief (see Dickman cond-mat 0110043 for an overview). We provide the exponents governing the critical behavior close to or at the transition point to first order in a 6-d expansion.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2002

Trapping of a random walk by diffusing traps

We present a systematic analytical approach to the trapping of a random walk by a finite density rho of diffusing traps in arbitrary dimension d. We confirm the phenomenologically predicted e^{-c_d rho t^{d/2}} time decay of the survival probability, and compute the dimension dependent constant c_d to leading order within an eps=2-d expansion.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2001

Equivalence of stationary state ensembles

We show that the contact process in an ensemble with conserved total particle number, as simulated recently by Tome and de Oliveira [Phys. Rev. Lett. 86 (2001) 5463], is equivalent to the ordinary contact process, in agreement with what the authors assumed and believed. Similar conserved ensembles and equivalence proofs are easily constructed for other models.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2001

On the velocity distributions of the one-dimensional inelastic gas

We consider the single-particle velocity distribution of a one-dimensional fluid of inelastic particles. Both the freely evolving (cooling) system and the non-equilibrium stationary state obtained in the presence of random forcing are investigated, and special emphasis is paid to the small inelasticity limit. The results are obtained from analytical arguments applied to the Boltzmann equation along with three complementary numerical techniques (Molecular Dynamics, Direct Monte Carlo Simulation Methods and iterative solutions of integro-differential kinetic equations). For the freely cooling fluid, we investigate in detail the scaling properties of the bimodal velocity distribution emerging close to elasticity and calculate the scaling function associated with the distribution function. In the heated steady state, we find that, depending on the inelasticity, the distribution function may display two different stretched exponential tails at large velocities. The inelasticity dependence of the crossover velocity is determined and it is found that the extremely high velocity tail may not be observable at ``experimentally relevant'' inelasticities.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2000

Field-theory for reaction-diffusion processes with hard-core particles

We show how to build up a systematic bosonic field-theory for a general reaction-diffusion process involving hard-core particles in arbitrary dimension. We criticize a recent approach proposed by Park, Kim and Park (Phys. Rev. E 62 (2000)). As a testbench for our method, we show how to recover the equivalence between asymmetric diffusion of excluding particles and the noisy Burgers equation.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2000

Statistics of the one-dimensional Riemann walk

The Riemann walk is the lattice version of the Levy flight. For the one-dimensional Riemann walk of Levy exponent 0<α<2 we study the statistics of the support, i.e. the set of visited sites, after t steps. We consider a wide class of support related observables M(t), including the number S(t) of visited sites and the number I(t) of sequences of visited sites. For t->\infty we obtain the asymptotic power laws for the averages, variances, and correlations of these observables. Logarithmic correction factors appear for α=2/3 and α=1. Bulk and surface observables have different power laws for 1\leqα<2. Fluctuations are shown to be universal for 2/3\leqα<2. This means that in the limit t->\infty the deviations from average \DeltaM(t) are fully described (i) either by a single M independent stochastic process (when 2/3\leqα\leq 1) (ii) or by two such processes, one for the bulk and one for the surface observables (when 1<α<2).

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv1999

Fermionic field theory for directed percolation in (1+1) dimensions

We formulate directed percolation in (1+1) dimensions in the language of a reaction-diffusion process with exclusion taking place in one space dimension. We map the master equation that describes the dynamics of the system onto a quantum spin chain problem. From there we build an interacting fermionic field theory of a new type. We study the resulting theory using renormalization group techniques. This yields numerical estimates for the critical exponents and provides a new alternative analytic systematic procedure to study low-dimensional directed percolation.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv1999

Fluctuation-induced first order transition in a nonequilibrium steady state

We present the first example of a phase transition in a nonequilibrium steady-state that can be argued analytically to be first order. The system of interest is a two-species reaction-diffusion problem whose control parameter is the total density ρ. Mean-field theory predicts a second-order transition between two stationary states at a critical density ρ=ρ_c. We develop a phenomenological picture that, instead, below the upper critical dimension d_c=4, predicts a first-order transition. This picture is confirmed by hysteresis found in numerical simulations, and by the study of a renormalization-group improved equation of state. The latter approach is inspired by the Weinberg-Coleman mechanism in QED.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv1998

Levy-flight spreading of epidemic processes leading to percolating clusters

We consider two stochastic processes, the Gribov process and the general epidemic process, that describe the spreading of an infectious disease. In contrast to the usually assumed case of short-range infections that lead, at the critical point, to directed and isotropic percolation respectively, we consider long-range infections with a probability distribution decaying in d dimensions with the distance as 1/R^{d+σ}. By means of Wilson's momentum shell renormalization-group recursion relations, the critical exponents characterizing the growing fractal clusters are calculated to first order in an ε-expansion. It is shown that the long-range critical behavior changes continuously to its short-range counterpart for a decay exponent of the infection σ=σ_c>2.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv1997

Wilson renormalization of a reaction-diffusion process

Healthy and sick individuals (A and B particles) diffuse independently with diffusion constants D_A and D_B. Sick individuals upon encounter infect healthy ones (at rate k), but may also spontaneously recover (at rate 1/τ). The propagation of the epidemic therefore couples to the fluctuations in the total population density. Global extinction occurs below a critical value ρ_{c} of the spatially averaged total density. The epidemic evolves as the diffusion--reaction--decay process A + B --> 2B, B --> A , for which we write down the field theory. The stationary state properties of this theory when D_A=D_B were obtained by Kree et al. The critical behavior for D_A D_B remains unsolved.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv1996

Universal fluctuations in the support of the random walk

A random walk starts from the origin of a d-dimensional lattice. The occupation number n(x,t) equals unity if after t steps site x has been visited by the walk, and zero otherwise. We study translationally invariant sums M(t) of observables defined locally on the field of occupation numbers. Examples are the number S(t) of visited sites; the area E(t) of the (appropriately defined) surface of the set of visited sites; and, in dimension d=3, the Euler index of this surface. In d > 3, the averages (t) all increase linearly with t as t-->infinity. We show that in d=3, to leading order in an asymptotic expansion in t, the deviations from average Delta M(t)= M(t)- (t) are, up to a normalization, all identical to a single "universal" random variable. This result resembles an earlier one in dimension d=2; we show that this universality breaks down for d>3.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv1996

Topology of the support of the two-dimensional random walk

We study the support (i.e. the set of visited sites) of a t step random walk on a two-dimensional square lattice in the large t limit. A broad class of global properties M(t) of the support is considered, including, e.g., the number S(t) of its sites; the length of its boundary; the number of islands of unvisited sites that it encloses; the number of such islands of given shape, size, and orientation; and the number of occurrences in space of specific local patterns of visited and unvisited sites. On a finite lattice we determine the scaling functions that describe the averages on appropriate lattice size dependent time scales. On an infinite lattice we first observe that the all increase with t as t/\log^k t, where k is an M dependent positive integer. We then consider the class of random processes constituted by the fluctuations around average Delta M(t). We show that to leading order as t gets large these fluctuations are all proportional to a single universal random process eta(t), normalized to =1$. For t--> infinity the probability law of eta(t) tends to that of Varadhan's renormalized local time of self-intersections. An implication is that in the long time limit all Delta M(t) are proportional to Delta S(t).

cond-mat↗