Irreversible growth of binary mixtures on small-world networks

Julián Candia

Published 2006-02-07, updated 2006-08-03Version 2

Binary mixtures growing on small-world networks under far-from-equilibrium conditions are studied by means of extensive Monte Carlo simulations. For any positive value of the shortcut fraction of the network ($p>0$), the system undergoes a continuous order-disorder phase transition, while it is noncritical in the regular lattice limit ($p=0$). Using finite-size scaling relations, the phase diagram is obtained in the thermodynamic limit and the critical exponents are evaluated. The small-world networks are thus shown to trigger criticality, a remarkable phenomenon which is analogous to similar observations reported recently in the investigation of equilibrium systems.