Nematic Phase of the n-Component Cubic-Spin Spin Glass in d=3: Liquid-Crystal Phase in a Dirty Magnet

Abstract

A nematic phase, previously seen in the d=3 classical Heisenberg spin-glass system, occurs in the n-component cubic-spin spin-glass system, between the low-temperature spin-glass phase and the high temperature disordered phase, for number of components n >= 3, in spatial dimension d=3, thus constituting a liquid-crystal phase in a dirty (quenched-disordered) magnet. This result is obtained from renormalization-group calculations that are exact on the hierarchical lattice and, equivalently, approximate on the cubic spatial lattice. The nematic phase completely intervenes between the spin-glass phase and the disordered phase. The Lyapunov exponents of the spin-glass chaos are calculated from n=1 up to n=12 and show odd-even oscillations with respect to n.