The energy landscape of aging systems--from a different angle

Abstract

A novel method for glassy landscape exploration is presented which utilizes a time series of energy values collected during an isothermal relaxation after a thermal quench. A sub-series of increasingly rare events, or quakes, which are connected to an irreversible release of energy from the system, is used to identify entry and exit times for landscape valleys. The landscape of three dimensional spin glasses is studied from this angle for a number of lattice sizes and for a range of low temperatures. A simple picture emerges regarding the temperature and size dependence of (1) the energy barriers separating the valleys, (2) the lowest energy minimum within a valley, and (3) the distance between the configurations belonging to the lowest minima in neighboring valleys. The configuration changes following the quakes are analyzed in terms of connected clusters of flipped spins, and the size distribution of these clusters is presented.