Spontaneous symmetry-breaking in equilibrium tree-packing configurations of a kinetically constrained cubic-lattice system

Abstract

We explore kinetic-constraint induced thermodynamic phase transition in the cubic lattice, employing the Fredrikson-Anderson spin model with hyperparameter $K=2$ as a representative kinetic system. Each lattice site may flip its binary occupation state if at most one of its six nearest neighbors is currently occupied. The whole set of microscopic configurations that are kinetically connected with the fully empty one is described by an equilibrium partition function with a single global constraint, that is, the occupied sites do not form closed loops but instead organize into different tree components in the lattice. We discover a continuous thermodynamic gas--crystal phase transition in the cubic system and determine the critical chemical potential $μ^* \approx -3.252$, at which the occupied sites of the equilibrium tree-packing configurations start to prefer one of the two nested cubic sublattices. This thermodynamic phase transition is absent in the two-dimensional square lattice.