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Phys. Rev. E 66, 056101 (2002) [7 pages]

Scaling analysis of a divergent prefactor in the metastable lifetime of a square-lattice Ising ferromagnet at low temperatures

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Kyungwha Park1,*, M. A. Novotny2,†, and P. A. Rikvold1,3,‡
1School of Computational Science and Information Technology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32306
2Department of Physics and Astronomy, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, Mississippi 39762
3Center for Materials Research and Technology and Department of Physics, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32306

Received 17 June 2002; published 5 November 2002

We examine a square-lattice nearest-neighbor Ising quantum ferromagnet coupled to d-dimensional phonon baths. Using the density-matrix equation, we calculate the transition rates between configurations, which determines the specific dynamic. Applying the calculated stochastic dynamic in Monte Carlo simulations, we measure the lifetimes of the metastable state. As the magnetic field approaches |H|/J=2 at low temperatures, the lifetime prefactor diverges because the transition rates between certain configurations approach zero under these conditions. Near |H|/J=2 and zero temperature, the divergent prefactor shows scaling behavior as a function of the field, temperature, and the dimension of the phonon baths. With proper scaling, the simulation data at different temperatures and for different dimensions of the baths collapse well onto two master curves, one for |H|/J>2 and one for |H|/J<2.

© 2002 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevE.66.056101
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevE.66.056101
PACS:
05.50.+q, 64.60.Qb, 75.60.Jk, 02.50.Ga

*Electronic address: park@dave.nrl.navy.mil; present address: Center for Computational Materials Science, Code 6390, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C. 20375.

Electronic address: man40@ra.msstate.edu

Electronic address: rikvold@csit.fsu.edu