{
  "id": "1511.04725",
  "version": "v1",
  "published": "2015-11-15T16:16:01.000Z",
  "updated": "2015-11-15T16:16:01.000Z",
  "title": "Random field disorder at an absorbing state transition in one and two dimensions",
  "authors": [
    "Hatem Barghathi",
    "Thomas Vojta"
  ],
  "comment": "14.5 pages, 15 eps figures included. Longer version of arXiv:1206.1878 with many additional results",
  "categories": [
    "cond-mat.stat-mech",
    "cond-mat.dis-nn"
  ],
  "abstract": "We investigate the behavior of nonequilibrium phase transitions under the influence of disorder that locally breaks the symmetry between two symmetrical macroscopic absorbing states. In equilibrium systems such \"random-field\" disorder destroys the phase transition in low dimensions by preventing spontaneous symmetry breaking. In contrast, we show here that random-field disorder fails to destroy the nonequilibrium phase transition of the one- and two-dimensional generalized contact process. Instead, it modifies the dynamics in the symmetry-broken phase. Specifically, the dynamics in the one-dimensional case is described by a Sinai walk of the domain walls between two different absorbing states. In the two-dimensional case, we map the dynamics onto that of the well studied low-temperature random-field Ising model. We also study the critical behavior of the nonequilibrium phase transition and characterize its universality class in one dimension. We support our results by large-scale Monte-Carlo simulations, and we discuss the applicability of our theory to other systems.",
  "revisions": [
    {
      "version": "v1",
      "updated": "2015-11-15T16:16:01.000Z"
    }
  ],
  "analyses": {
    "keywords": [
      "random field disorder",
      "absorbing state transition",
      "nonequilibrium phase transition",
      "low-temperature random-field ising model",
      "two-dimensional generalized contact process"
    ],
    "note": {
      "typesetting": "TeX",
      "pages": 5,
      "language": "en",
      "license": "arXiv",
      "status": "editable"
    }
  }
}