T-6

Goal: Trap model. Captures aging in a simplified single particle description.

Key concepts: gradient descent, rugged landscapes, metastable states, Hessian matrices, random matrix theory, landscape’s complexity.

Langevin, Activation

- Monte Carlo dynamics.Langevin dynamics.

-Arrhenius law, trapping and activation.

-aging

The energy landscape of the REM. Consider the REM discussed in Problems 1. Assume that the $2^{N}$ configurations are organised in an hypercube of connectivity $N$: each configuration has $N$ neighbours, that are obtained flipping one spin of the first configuration.

Problem 6.1: a simple model for aging

Traps in the trap model.

The trap model is an abstract model for the dynamics in complex landscapes introduced in ^[1] . The configuration space is a collection of $M\gg 1$ traps labeled by $\alpha$ having random depths/energies (see sketch). The dynamics is a sequence of jumps between the traps: the system spends in a trap $\alpha$ an exponentially large time with average $\tau _{\alpha }$ (the probability to jump out of the trap in time $[t,t+dt]$ is $dt/\tau _{\alpha }$.). When the system exits the trap, it jumps into another one randomly chosen among the $M$. The average times are distributed as

$P_{m}(\tau )={\frac {m\tau _{0}^{m}}{\tau ^{1+m}}}\quad \quad \tau \geq \tau _{0}$

where $m$ is a parameter. In this exercise, we aim at understanding the main features of this dynamics.

1. Aging. Compute the average trapping time (between the various traps) and show that there is a critical value of $m$ below which it diverges, signalling a non-ergodic phase (the system needs infinite time to explore the whole configuration space). Consider a dynamics running from time $t_{w}$ to some later time $t_{w}+t$: compute the typical value of the maximal trapping time $\tau _{\text{max}}(t)$ encountered in this time interval, assuming that the system has spent time $\tau _{\alpha }$ in each visited trap $\alpha$. Show that in the non-ergodic phase $\tau _{\text{max}}(t)\sim t$. Why is this interpretable as a condensation phenomenon, as the ones discussed in Problems 1? Why is this an indication of aging?


2. Correlation functions and weak ergodicity breaking. Assume now that the trap represent a collection of microscopic configurations having self overlap $q_{EA}$. Assume that the overlap between configurations of different traps is $q_{0}$. Justify why the correlation function can be written as

   $C(t_{w}+t,t_{w})=q_{EA}\Pi (t,t_{w})+q_{0}\left(1-\Pi (t,t_{w})\right),\quad \quad \Pi (t,t_{w})={\text{probability that systems has not jumped in }}[t_{w},t_{w}+t].$

   In the non-ergodic regime, one finds:

   $\Pi (t,t_{w})={\frac {\sin(\pi m)}{\pi }}\int _{\frac {t}{t+t_{w}}}^{1}du(1-u)^{m-1}u^{-m}.$

   Why is this, again, an indication of aging? Study the asymptotic behaviour of the correlation function for $t\ll t_{w}$ and $t\gg t_{w}$. Show that

   $\lim _{t\to \infty }C(t_{w}+t,t_{w})=q_{0}\quad {\text{ for finite }}t_{w},\quad \quad \lim _{t_{w}\to \infty }C(t_{w}+t,t_{w})=q_{EA}\quad {\text{ for finite }}t$ When $q_{0}=0$, this behaviour is called "weak ergodicity breaking".

Problem 6.2: from traps to landscapes

In this exercise, we aim at understanding why the trap model is a good effective model for activated dynamics in glassy landscapes. In particular, we will discuss connections with the landscape structure of two models that we have studied so far: the REM and spherical p-spin model.

1. REM: the golf course landscape. In the REM, the smallest energies values $E_{\alpha }$ among the $M=2^{N}$ can be assumed to be distributed as

   $P_{N}^{\text{extrm}}(E)=C_{N}{\text{exp}}\left[2{\sqrt {\log 2}}(E+N{\sqrt {\log 2}})\right],\quad \quad E<0,\quad \quad C_{N}{\text{ normalization}}$

   Justify the form of this distribution (Hint: recall the discussion on extreme value statistics in Lecture 1!). Consider now one of these deep configurations of energy close to that of the ground state: what is the minimal energy among the $N$ neighbouring configurations, which differs from the previous one by a spin flip? Does it depend on the energy of the original one? Why is this consistent with the results on the entropy of the REM that we computed in Problem 1.1?


2. REM: trapping times. The results above show that the energy landscape of the REM has a "golf course" structure: configuration with deep energy are isolated, surrounded by configurations of much higher energy (zero energy density). The Arrhenius law states that the time needed for the system to escape from a trap of energy $E$ and reach a configuration of zero energy is $\tau \sim e^{\beta |E|}$. This is a trapping time. Given the energy distribution $P_{N}(E)$, determine the distribution of trapping times $P_{m}(\tau )$: what is $m$? What is the critical temperature?


3. p-spin: the “trap” picture and the assumptions behind. In Problems 5, we have seen that the energy landscape of the spherical p-spin is characterized by the threshold energy, below which plenty of minima appear. The region below the threshold is explored by activated dynamics. Explain why the tap model corresponds to the following picture for the dynamics: the system is trapped into minima for exponentially large times, and then jumps from minimum to minimum passing through the threshold energy. Do you see any assumption behind the trap description that is not straightforwardly justified in the p-spin case?

Check out: key concepts of this TD

Annealed vs quenched averages, replica trick, fully-connected models, order parameters, the three steps of a replica calculation.

References

• Bouchaud. Weak ergodicity breaking and aging in disordered systems [1]