Glassy behaviour in a 3-state spin model

Abstract

In this article we study a simple spin model which has a non-interacting Hamiltonian but constrained dynamics. The model, which is a simplification of a purely toplogical cellular model, displays glassy behaviour, involves activated processes and exhibits two-step relaxation. This is a consequence of the existence of annihilation-diffusion processes on two distinct time-scales, one temperature independent and the other an exponential function of inverse temperature. In fact, there are several such inter-coupled microscopic processes and great richness therein. Two versions of the model are considered, one with a single absorbing ground state and the other with a highly degenerate ground state. These display qualitatively similar but quantitatively distinct macroscopic behaviour and related, but different, microscopic behaviour.