Multifractality in spin glasses

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024 Jan 9;121(2):e2312880120. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2312880120. Epub 2024 Jan 4.

Abstract

We unveil the multifractal behavior of Ising spin glasses in their low-temperature phase. Using the Janus II custom-built supercomputer, the spin-glass correlation function is studied locally. Dramatic fluctuations are found when pairs of sites at the same distance are compared. The scaling of these fluctuations, as the spin-glass coherence length grows with time, is characterized through the computation of the singularity spectrum and its corresponding Legendre transform. A comparatively small number of site pairs controls the average correlation that governs the response to a magnetic field. We explain how this scenario of dramatic fluctuations (at length scales smaller than the coherence length) can be reconciled with the smooth, self-averaging behavior that has long been considered to describe spin-glass dynamics.

Keywords: disorder systems; fractal dimensions; intermittency; large scale simulations.