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Physics Condensed Matter Statistical Mechanics

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Wednesday 7 October

Statistical Mechanics · Cross-listed from nlin.CG

A repeating sequence of simple rules creates a universal computer

We show that the Turing complete rule 110 in elementary cellular automata can be emulated by alternating three simple symmetric rules in space. As the constituent rules themselves are trivial, this shows that diversity alone can generate emergent phenomena. The rules cannot distinguish left from right, and the chirality of rule 110 is created by their arrangement. Random initial conditions lock on to rule 110 over 90% of the time, explained through the motion of domain walls between desynchronized regions. Adding random noise creates errors that seed domain walls, whose fraction scales with the square root of noise strength, explained through a simple rate equation. This points to a route to complexity through repeated, perturbed units, common in biology, and shows that in cellular automaton models of quantum field theory, broken symmetries such as parity need not be present in the local rules.
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Statistical Mechanics · Cross-listed from quant-ph

Redundant Records of the Past: Unifying Quantum Darwinism and Decoherent Histories

There exist two different paradigms for records in isolated quantum systems: decoherent histories (which determines which past events leave formal records) and quantum Darwinism (which determines which current events get redundantly recorded). Neither one implies the other, and connections between the two are scarcely investigated. We unify quantum Darwinism and decoherent histories based on the insight that only redundant records about past events matter. The resulting framework of past redundancy encompasses quantum Darwinism when applied to events at the current time, and it connects redundancy to decoherence of histories and the probability sum rule via the Bhattacharyya coefficient (or fidelity). Importantly, various examples show that past redundancy is a more widespread phenomenon than the fine-tuned models necessary for quantum Darwinism suggest. We thus arrive at a richer picture in which redundancy can be caused by mechanisms different from quantum Darwinism (such as macroevents or cascade structures), which emphasizes that redundancy is necessary but not sufficient for objectivity, and which, overall, allows to realistically investigate the question: how generic is redundancy in nature?
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Statistical Mechanics · Cross-listed from hep-th

Singlet sector of the vector model with angular potential

We study the singlet sector of large-$N$, $O(N)$ vector model on $S^1_\beta\times S^2_r$ in presence of an angular potential $\Omega$. We compute the free energy of the model both at the free fixed point as well as the non-trivial fixed point. The model undergoes a phase transition when the temperature $T$ and angular potential attain the relation $T^2r^2\sim N (1-\omega^2)$, where $\omega=r\Omega$ and $r$ is the radius of $S^2$, with $Tr\gg1$, at both the fixed points, with different numerical coefficients. The transition was studied earlier at zero angular potential at $Tr\sim \sqrt{N}$. The holonomy eigenvalue distribution, having support on the full circle below the transition, develops a gap above it, called the Gross-Witten-Wadia transition. The angular potential introduces an additional parameter to such a transition, tuning it, the transition can occur even at a fixed temperature. We show that for the free model transition can occur as $1-\omega^2\sim 1/N$ while $Tr\sim O(1)$. For the interacting model the computation is performed at a limit $Tr\gg1$, thus we show the same at a large but fixed temperature which does not scale as $\sqrt{N}$. In the ungapped phase, the free energy exhibits a double pole near $\omega^2=1$ for both the fixed points. This is possibly due to the fact that the theory projected onto the singlets is non-local and therefore need not obey the leading simple pole scaling of a local thermal effective action.
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Statistical Mechanics · Cross-listed from q-bio.PE

Mathematical statistics of wild mammal biomass

Using the recently published global census of the biomass of wild terrestrial mammals, we perform a detailed mathematical statistical analysis of its distribution over $N_s=4795$ species, drawing on tools developed in economics to characterize wealth inequality. We show that the Lorenz curve of the mammal biomass distribution is characterized by a large Gini coefficient $G=0.944$ exceeding the inequality reported for wealth distribution among world countries. This distribution is compared to the predictions of the Wealth Thermalization Hypothesis (WTH), in which species biomass values are treated as energy levels populated according to a Rayleigh-Jeans (RJ) steady-state distribution. We show that an RJ extended spectral model reproduces the real Lorenz and Pareto curves over four orders of magnitude of biomass variation, capturing the strong condensation of biomass among the rare, heavy-bodied species and its near-absence among the vast majority of light-bodied ones. These results extend the WTH framework, previously validated on distributions of human economic origin, to a biological distribution shaped by ecological and evolutionary constraints, and place the extreme rarity of large-bodied mammal species within the same statistical mathematical description as the oligarchic concentration of wealth in human societies. We finally discuss possible ecological mechanisms that may contribute to the observed distribution, including interspecific interactions, food availability, and competition.
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Statistical Mechanics

Correspondence between Asymptotic Quantum Many-Body Scars in Closed Systems and Diffusive Nambu-Goldstone Modes in Open Systems

Hydrodynamic relaxation in open quantum many-body systems can be understood in terms of diffusive Nambu–Goldstone (NG) modes associated with strong-to-weak spontaneous symmetry breaking (SWSSB). Here, we find a common structure underlying weak ergodicity breaking in closed quantum systems and diffusive hydrodynamics in open quantum systems. We establish a spectral correspondence between the parent Hamiltonian of rainbow quantum many-body scar (RQMBS) states in closed systems and the effective Lindbladian of strongly dissipative open systems with strong $U(1)$ symmetry and local charge-dephasing Lindblad operators. For broad classes of spin, fermionic, and bosonic systems, we construct asymptotic RQMBS (ARQMBS) states. Within the enlarged scar subspace, the parent Hamiltonian admits a local Rokhsar–Kivelson-type frustration-free decomposition. A single-mode variational construction gives an $O(k^2)$ upper bound on its lowest excitation energy and yields states satisfying the defining ARQMBS criteria: orthogonality, vanishing energy variance, and characteristic entanglement scaling. Under vectorization, RQMBS states are mapped to maximally mixed infinite-temperature states in fixed-charge sectors, which exhibit long-range SWSSB order under finite-density conditions. Assuming uniformly bounded positive transition rates, the effective Lindbladian has the same local projectors as the parent Hamiltonian but with positive transition-dependent weights, yielding two-sided spectral bounds and the same system-size scaling of their gaps. For uniform rates, the two operators are proportional to each other and their eigenmodes coincide. Therefore, an exact quadratic parent-Hamiltonian branch maps directly to a diffusive NG mode. Our results connect different mechanisms of slow relaxation in closed and open quantum many-body systems.
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Statistical Mechanics · Cross-listed from cond-mat.dis-nn

Predicting activation-barrier and plasticity-onset statistics in a model of glasses

A recently introduced anharmonic mean-field model unifiedly reproduced a broad range of low-temperature glass phenomena — including harmonic nonphononic spectral properties, linear micromechanics and strongly driven elasto-plastic dynamics — indicating that its underlying energy landscape is intrinsically glassy. Here, we apply a nonlinear modes framework to the model and derive analytic predictions for the asymptotic distributions of activation barriers $p(\Delta{U})\!\sim\!(\Delta{U})^{1/4}$ and the external force needed for the onset of plasticity $p(f_{\rm c})\sim f_{\rm c}^{2/3}$, for their extreme-value scaling and for $\langle\Delta{U}\rangle$ beyond the asymptotic regime. These predictions are expected to equally apply to the mean-field model and to finite-dimensional glasses. We develop efficient algorithms for sampling minima and saddles of the model's glassy potential energy landscape, and quantitatively confirm the theoretical predictions. This progress is enabled by identifying a subset of collective degrees of freedom that are physically relevant for activated glassy dynamics, which like the theoretical predictions should apply to realistic glasses.
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Statistical Mechanics

Heat Transport of the $\beta$-Fermi–Pasta–Ulam–Tsingou chain in the long-wave limit

Resolving the anomalous conductivity exponent of the symmetric $\beta$-Fermi–Pasta–Ulam–Tsingou chain by molecular dynamics can require very large systems because of long finite-size crossovers and thermal-contact resistance. Motivated by this computational challenge, we derive a long-wavelength continuum description and investigate whether the kinetic-theory scaling $\kappa\propto L^{2/5}$ becomes accessible with a moderate number of numerical degrees of freedom. The nonlinear elastic field retains the cubic stress of the microscopic interaction and exchanges heat with Langevin reservoirs. A flux-conservative spatial discretization constructs the force and energy current from the same stress, providing a consistent interior transport estimator. For $L>8$, corresponding to approximately $10^3$ mesh nodes and above at the reference resolution, the fitted exponent is $0.399\pm0.004$. Mesh refinement supports the stability of this exponent between the two finer resolutions, although the conductivity amplitude remains resolution-dependent. The main result is thus an accessible finite-size regime near $2/5$, rather than convergence of the absolute conductivity as the mesh spacing vanishes. This formulation provides a practical route to studying anomalous transport in anharmonic systems and a conservative continuum framework for investigating energy flow in nonlinear elastic media.
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Statistical Mechanics · Cross-listed from math.PR

Vertex crossings in a symmetric Markov multinomial model

We observe a ball bouncing down a Galton board with any number of directions. At each peg it either keeps its direction with some fixed probability or randomly turns to one of the other directions. Its bin measures how often it went each way, a point of a simplex. When the ball rarely turns, the most likely bins are the corners, which only a ball that never turns can reach. We ask when the best bin of each face of the simplex becomes as likely as a corner. To first order every face catches up at the same moment. We break this tie at second order, with an explicit constant for each face. Hence on a long board, as the expected number of turns grows to any fixed multiple of the length's logarithm, the most likely bin jumps once, from the corners straight to the center. A nonuniform start or a weak external field changes the constants, potentially allowing an intermediate face to win.
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Tuesday 6 October

Statistical Mechanics

Phase diagram of a semiflexible magnetic polymer in three dimensions

We study a semiflexible magnetic polymer in which each monomer carries a two-state spin, giving rise to coupled conformational, stiffness, and magnetic degrees of freedom. The model provides a minimal representation of nucleoprotein complexes in vivo, in which DNA bending rigidity and bridging proteins must be simultaneously accommodated. We employ Monte Carlo simulations on a face-centered-cubic (FCC) lattice, complemented by a variational free-energy upper-bound approach, to characterize the zero-field phase diagram as a function of bending stiffness and temperature. At low stiffness, we identify a first-order transition combining coil-to-globule collapse with a ferromagnetic-to-paramagnetic transition. At lower temperatures, an additional first-order transition separates the disordered globule from an ordered crystal characterized by nematic-like orientational order of the bond tangents. At high stiffness, the globule disappears, resulting in a direct first-order coil-to-crystal transition. These results demonstrate how chain stiffness and magnetic degrees of freedom couple to polymer conformation and reorganize the zero-field phase diagram. Our model connects the two limiting cases of flexible magnetic polymers and semiflexible homopolymers, the latter corresponding to the strong-field limit in which all spins are aligned.
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Statistical Mechanics · Cross-listed from quant-ph

An efficient variational polaron master equation for non-Markovian spin-boson dynamics: Transformed initial states and general observables

We investigate the effects of initial states on the dynamics of a quantum spin-boson model using an efficient variational polaron master equation approach. The transformation of a factorized system-environment initial state into the variational polaron frame introduces inhomogeneous terms in the master equation, essential for accurately describing non-Markovian dynamics beyond the weak coupling regime. To efficiently account for these effects, we formulate the dynamics in an extended auxiliary Liouville space, converting the resulting integro-differential equations into coupled ordinary differential equations. We further introduce a simplified variational polaron technique for computing the time evolution of expectation values of general observables, including those that do not commute with the polaron transformation, overcoming a major limitation of previous approaches and enabling the unified treatment of coherence and population dynamics. The effects of transformed initial states generated from arbitrary factorized initial states are systematically characterized through expectation values and trace-distance analysis, providing insight into the associated bath-relaxation dynamics over a broad range of tunneling amplitudes, temperatures, and coupling strengths. Comparison with the weak-coupling master equation reveals a delay phenomenon associated with multi-bath-quanta processes, pronounced at intermediate coupling strengths and tunneling amplitudes. We further show that coherent superposition initial states induce stronger nonequilibrium effects than localized states, with inhomogeneous terms playing a crucial role in the short-time dynamics. The proposed formalism applies to both undriven and resonantly driven spin-boson models, providing a computationally efficient framework for open quantum-system dynamics with arbitrary factorized initial states and general physical observables.
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Statistical Mechanics

Algebraic Tensor Network Renormalization and Holographic duality

Emergent generalized symmetries and the holographic principle play very important roles in understanding quantum phase transitions. In recent years, tensor-network renormalization with generalized symmetry and the corresponding fixed-point tensor formulation have been proposed as a discrete spacetime framework for reformulating conformal field theory. Nevertheless, a complete holographic formulation within this framework is still lacking, and the current formulation does not directly accommodate sector partition functions that are modular covariant in general. In this work, we formulate $\mathcal{R}$-TNR, which builds the categorical constraints of a fusion category $\mathcal{R}$ into local tensor spaces and preserves these constraints under Loop-TNR. For suitable choices of $\mathcal{R}$, the initial tensors constructed here flow under $\mathcal{R}$-Loop-TNR to stable gapless fixed points. In the Ising, tricritical Ising, and three-state Potts conformal field theory examples, a broad range of initial parameters leads to the same gapless fixed point in each example. The method resolves conformal towers by anyon sector and yields scaling dimensions, conformal spins, and magnitudes of sector-resolved structure constants with extremely high accuracy compared to previous methods. These results realize a topological bootstrap based on stable symmetry-topological-order in which finite categorical and geometric input, together with an initial tensor that need not be fine-tuned, suffices to recover the infrared conformal field theory and its sector-resolved conformal data.
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Statistical Mechanics · Cross-listed from math-ph

Nematic order in monomer-dimer models of Heilmann and Lieb with lateral attraction in dimensions $d\ge 2$

We study the $d$-dimensional generalization of Models II ($d=2$) and V ($d=3$) for liquid crystals introduced by Heilmann–Lieb (1979), which consists of dimers on the hypercubic lattice at chemical potential $\mu$, interacting via a hard-core repulsion and a lateral attraction between parallel dimers with coupling constant $b>0$. For $d\in\{2,3\}$, these models were conjectured to exhibit liquid-crystalline order at low temperatures provided that $\mu+2(d-1)b>0$. We establish nematic order for all $d\ge 2$ under the additional condition $(4d-6)b>\mu$, which corresponds to the physical regime in which misaligned dimers are rare on scales comparable to the correlation length of the one-dimensional reference system. While the treatment of orientational order here follows the approach of our recent work on Model I, the proof of the absence of translational order relies on a custom implementation of cluster swapping in the sense of Sheffield (2005). Consequently, we deduce uniqueness of Gibbs measure and anisotropic exponential decay of correlations within each oriented phase.
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Statistical Mechanics

Fast free-energy estimation for complex systems with nonreversible simulated tempering

We discuss free-energy estimation for complex systems using simulated tempering with Wang–Landau-type feedback. We show that introducing nonreversible dynamics in temperature space and multiple temperature updates per step significantly accelerates the convergence of the free-energy estimate. We then apply the algorithm to the three-dimensional Edwards-Anderson spin-glass model. Our results show that the algorithm can precisely estimate the free energy up to a large system size $L \simeq 64$, and that subsequent equilibrium simulated tempering simulations with the estimated free energy can rapidly sample from the Boltzmann distributions over a wide temperature range that covers the spin-glass transition temperature. The convergence time of our algorithm grows much more slowly with system size than that of another known algorithm for on-the-fly free-energy estimation.
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Statistical Mechanics

Analytical results for the Shannon entropy of the critical transverse-field Ising chain

Local-basis Shannon entropies of critical wave functions contain universal subleading information, but the Shannon point of the critical transverse-field Ising chain is singular in the conventional Rényi approach. We treat it directly at $n=1$ by representing the complete computational-basis Born distribution as the odd-degree boundary of independent long-range Bernoulli edges. The Shannon chain rule separates the entropy into explicit independent-edge and conditional cycle-space terms. For the periodic chain this isolates the analytic edge anomaly and organizes the remaining constant by linked vertex support. Conditional on the stated finite-part matching and forest assumptions, every nonvanishing linked coefficient is represented by an explicit finite-dimensional integral, giving an all-orders analytic hierarchy; the four-vertex term is evaluated in closed form, and the first few linked sectors already nearly saturate the established periodic constant, which is also reconstructed independently from the exact finite-size distribution. For an interval, the exterior reduces exactly to one ghost vertex and the explicit squared logarithms cancel, leaving the analytic edge contribution $\gamma_E=\log2/4-1/16$. The conditional cycle term has an exact all-support decomposition into physical-line and ghost-linked sectors; conditional on closure of the boundary forest subtraction, these sectors define an all-orders hierarchy of renormalized line and monomer–dimer boundary periods for the remaining logarithmic coefficient. The first complete augmented linked coefficient is evaluated in closed form, with an exact cancellation between its line and ghost boundary-layer anomalies; an independent reconstruction from exact finite-size probabilities recovers the established coefficient $\gamma_1=0.060020(3)$.
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Statistical Mechanics

Replica Fragmentation and Glassy Dynamics in Parity Learning

We study how independently trained Transformer neural networks reconstruct a binary string from its local domain walls. Runs sharing the data and training protocol can realize different functions. We treat them as replicas and measure truth alignment $m$, prediction confidence $q_{\mathrm{self}}$, and cross-replica agreement $q_{\mathrm{cross}}$. Confident disagreement defines the finite-size replica fragmentation that we call glass-like. With small training sets, replicas predict all training examples correctly but remain confident in incorrect predictions for unseen inputs, a regime we call memorization. With larger sets, runs can generalize and then retreat. Retreat occurs when outputs start to deviate from truth while confidence remains high. The frontier between learned and unlearned outputs recedes toward shorter strings. Many later recover as the frontier advances again. The self–cross gap $q_{\mathrm{self}}-q_{\mathrm{cross}}$ clearly distinguishes the three learning regimes of memorization, retreat, and recovery. With overall and position-dependent truth alignment subtracted, their residual correlations also differ: memorizing replicas have weakly and uniformly correlated residuals, while retreat has the largest fraction of replica pairs whose residuals are anti-correlated. That is, on the inputs where one replica of such a pair does better than its average, the other tends to do worse. These finite-size observations distinguish persistent memorization from ongoing retreat–recovery dynamics. The thermodynamic and long-time limits, and extensions to other learning tasks, remain open.
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Statistical Mechanics

Hamiltonian curl-forces in systems coupled to multiple thermal reservoirs

We investigate the statistical mechanics of a system coupled to multiple heat reservoirs at different temperatures, a setting which typically sustains nontrivial circulation. By applying a canonical transformation, we map the system onto that of a particle coupled to a single reservoir yet driven by a deterministic curl-force—a reversible, velocity-independent non-conservative force with non-vanishing curl—that can be described by a Hamiltonian with an anisotropic kinetic energy term. Despite the Hamiltonian structure, the system does not relax to the corresponding Boltzmann distribution, and is genuinely out of equilibrium. The mapping provides a mechanical interpretation of the currents in multi-temperature systems, as we demonstrate by means of two examples. In particular, the direction of circulation is qualitatively predictable from the deterministic force field. For the exactly solvable case of an $N$-dimensional underdamped Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process, we derive explicit expressions for the steady-state distribution and the entropy production rate, highlighting the role of the (generalized) curl of the force field in driving the system out of thermal equilibrium. Finally, we show how a non-conservative force can be used to exactly equilibrate any system coupled to multiple reservoirs, and obtain the corresponding equilibrium distribution.
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Statistical Mechanics · Cross-listed from cond-mat.str-el

Symmetry protected quantum many body scars through half-gauging

We study the interplay between symmetry defects insertion and the phenomena of quantum many body scarring. We exploit a class of models obtained from an embedding mechanism that defines a stochastic matrix form hamiltonian, hosting zero energy many body scarred states. Such models display an interesting playground to explore the consequences of dualities, half-gauging operations and so on. We first show that inside this class of models, what are the conditions to still have scared states after defect insertion. The main result of our work is a detailed analysis of half-gauging in such chains, which introduces a non-trivial interface in our system, leading to scarred states protected by the underlying symmetries. The conclusions for half-gauged scarred systems are general and may lead to fruitful directions for higher dimension scarred physics and their robustness.
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Statistical Mechanics · Cross-listed from cond-mat.soft

Stress Tensor in Fundamental Measure Theory of Hard-Sphere Fluids: A Thermomechanical Approach

We derive the local pressure tensor generated by the original Rosenfeld fundamental measure theory (FMT) for hard-sphere fluids from an arbitrary infinitesimal deformation. The variation of a finite-distance FMT kernel is written via the line integrals of the local deformation gradient along the straight segment connecting its endpoints. The resulting symmetric pressure tensor consists of a local term expressed through the standard FMT weighted densities and a finite-range chord term. For a monodisperse hard-sphere fluid, differential relations between the Rosenfeld measures reduce the tensor to a closed one-body form. We demonstrate that no independent pair density or inhomogeneous Ornstein–Zernike equation is required. In the limit of homogeneous fluid the tensor reproduces the Percus–Yevick compressibility equation of state. In planar confinement the normal stress satisfies the hard-wall contact relation, the mechanical surface tension agrees with the surface excess grand potential, and the disjoining pressure agrees with the derivative of the confined grand potential with respect to slit width. The finite-range chord term extends the deformation method from local field theories to nonlocal weighted-density functionals.
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Statistical Mechanics

Closed analytical form of many-body free volume and thermodynamics of monodisperse hard disks

The hard disk model is a fundamental reference system for excluded volume physics, liquid structure, and 2D ordering. Yet, despite its apparent simplicity, an analytical formulation of its thermodynamics has remained difficult because the free volume available to disks centers has a highly nontrivial many-body geometry. Here we show that this geometry admits a closed and exact representation: for any given hard disk configuration, the free volume can be analytically expressed through intersection areas of up to five exclusion disks. This provides a direct geometrical route from particle coordinates to the configurational partition function and entropy. We prove that the N disk partition function factorizes into a product of conditional free volumes and identify its two limiting asymptotic forms: the low density fluid regime controlled by extensive cavities and the high density fluid regime controlled by intensive private cells. Using the geometric measures computed from representative equilibrium particle configurations, the resulting theory reproduces the established hard disk equation of state over almost the entire density range up to close packing. At intermediate densities, the analysis reveals a mixed fluid regime in which localized caged defects provide an additional configurational entropy within the density interval preceding liquid hexatic coexistence. Finally, the five disk intersection area is shown to be a sensitive local scalar measure of hexagonal ordering, complementing the orientational order parameter and emphasizing the central role of many-body correlations.
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Statistical Mechanics · Cross-listed from cond-mat.soft

Fluctuating chemically active droplets

We study size fluctuations of chemically active droplets in the regime of weak reactions and strong phase separation. By combining a thin-interface model for the deterministic droplet growth with stochastic noise based on fluctuation-dissipation arguments, we report excellent quantitative agreement between our theory and numerical field simulations. Finally, we use our model to infer the effective non-equilibrium potential that governs droplet growth, and show that active reactions that enable size control suppress nucleation.
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All authors Guido L. A. Kusters, Noah Ziethen, Michael E. Cates, David Zwicker

Statistical Mechanics · Cross-listed from physics.soc-ph

A New Model for the Income Distribution

In this study, we propose a kinetic trap–diffusion model to describe the emergence of Pareto distributions in money-exchange systems. Using kinetic Monte Carlo simulations, we show that the Pareto exponent depends explicitly on temperature and takes values in the range $0.5 \leq \nu(T) \leq 1.5$. In the present framework, the temperature $T$ acts as a control parameter that regulates the exchange dynamics through thermally activated diffusion. Unlike conventional kinetic exchange models, where the Pareto exponent is fixed by microscopic rules, the proposed model generates a range of Pareto exponents as a function of $T$. The temperature-dependent Pareto exponent constitutes the central novelty of the proposed kinetic trap–diffusion framework. This feature provides a natural explanation for the empirically observed variations in Pareto exponents across different countries and economic conditions. In addition, the fraction of zero-wealth agents and the Gini index exhibit a non-monotonic dependence on temperature, revealing distinct dynamical regimes arising from the competition between trapping and money mobility. The persistence of the Pareto-like stationary distribution under strongly nonuniform initial conditions further supports the robustness of the proposed mechanism. These results show that different Pareto-tail and inequality regimes can emerge from the same trap–diffusion dynamics through changes in a single control parameter
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Statistical Mechanics

Spatial density, first passage times, and entropy of run and tumble particles in a bistable potential

We study the dynamics of a run and tumble particle (RTP) in a bistable potential, in contact with a heat bath. We find the exact form of the steady state position distribution as well as its time-dependent form in Laplace space. We use this result to study relaxation properties of the spatial probability density and find that it converges to the steady state from the center outwards, with the relaxation front moving ballistically in time. Physically this ballistic behavior arises when observing relaxation properties at the tails of the density, where the distance of the particle from the origin is larger than the length-scale describing the steady state of the RTP. We also find the exact form of the mean first passage time, and the long-time behavior of the first passage time distribution. This allows us to coarse-grain the dynamics as a dichotomous Markov process, a paradigm for a wide class of bistable processes. Coarse-graining, however, comes at the cost of a loss of information: while the RTP possesses a finite entropy production even at steady state, it identically vanishes for its coarse-grained description.
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Statistical Mechanics

Heterogeneous diffusion with recruitment and mortality

We study a heterogeneous diffusion process with a position-dependent diffusion coefficient in the presence of independent recruitment and mortality. This framework generalises heterogeneous diffusion under stochastic resetting, which is recovered as the special case of equal recruitment and mortality rates. At long times, the system approaches a non-equilibrium stationary state with a mean squared displacement that saturates to a value independent of the recruitment rate. Crucially, this saturation limit directly encodes the underlying transport regime via an effective exponent applied to the diffusion coefficient, and we characterise the non-trivial transition to this stationary regime. We further derive the mean first-passage time to a target and show that, for a fixed recruitment-to-mortality ratio, an optimal mortality rate minimises the search time. This "mortality-assisted search" effect is confirmed by numerical evaluation. Reinterpreting recruitment and mortality as infection and removal processes, we apply the model to epidemic spreading and show that a moderate removal rate can counter-intuitively accelerate, rather than delay, the arrival of infection at a new spatial region. Beyond epidemiology, our framework offers broad relevance to systems featuring concurrent particle creation and destruction, such as bacterial growth, tracer diffusion in reactive fluids, or cellular population dynamics in crowded environments.
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All authors Esther D. Gutiérrez, Alexander López, R.K. Singh, Sébastien Fumeron, Malte Henkel, Trifce Sandev

Statistical Mechanics · Cross-listed from quant-ph

A Single Conformal Coordinate Decodes Outcome-Resolved Measurement-Induced Entanglement

A local measurement of a critical many-body state produces exponentially many microscopic outcomes, each defining a different conditioned quantum state. We ask how much information from one such outcome is actually needed to predict the entanglement that remains between two unmeasured regions. We show that, in critical quantum chains, the universal outcome-resolved Rényi entropy is asymptotically determined by a single compact conformal coordinate extracted directly from the measurement record. Compact-boson theory explains this compression: the universal entropy is insensitive to all spatially varying components of the boundary profile, retaining only a single relative compact zero mode. At the free-fermion XX point, exact lattice identities expose the microscopic structure underlying the decoder, while large-scale outcome-by-outcome calculations confirm its scaling prediction across different subsystem geometries and Rényi indices. Numerical calculations in interacting XXZ chains further show that the same microscopic coordinate continues to decode the conditional entropy without interaction-dependent retuning. Thus an exponentially large space of measurement outcomes is reduced, for this universal observable, to a single conformal degree of freedom, revealing an emergent Luttinger-liquid mechanism for outcome-resolved postmeasurement entanglement.
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Statistical Mechanics

Long-Range Nonequilibrium Correlations as a Thermodynamic Speedometer

Despite purely local microscopic dynamics, nonequilibrium steady states can develop long-range correlations. We investigate this phenomenon in the boundary-driven symmetric simple exclusion process by relating its exact nonlocal large-deviation functional to finite-time thermodynamic irreversibility under weak time-dependent driving. Decomposing the long-range correlations into hydrodynamic modes, we find that the lag associated with the slowest mode satisfies an upper bound determined by the excess entropy production rate at each driving frequency. This bound is approached in the quasistatic limit, whereas progressively shorter-wavelength modes do not generally satisfy the corresponding bound. These results provide a quantitative connection between the curvature of the large-deviation functional, long-range correlations in the nonequilibrium steady state, and finite-time dissipation. Within the linear-response regime considered here, they indicate that the longest-wavelength hydrodynamic mode has a distinct relation between slow relaxation and thermodynamic irreversibility.
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All authors Vinesh Vijayan, Rishma Thilakaraj, Gokila V, Yogeshvari V A

Statistical Mechanics · Cross-listed from hep-th

Spontaneous Hawking Radiation from Dynamical Black-Hole Formation in Quantum Spin Systems

We show that Hawking radiation spontaneously generated by dynamical black-hole formation can be realized in a local quantum spin model. Starting from the ground state corresponding to the early-time vacuum, with no initially prepared excitations, we follow the dynamics induced by the evolving geometry. In the corresponding continuum quantum field theory, Hawking particle creation is associated with nontrivial Bogoliubov mixing between the in- and out-mode decompositions. We derive the resulting renormalized local energy density in the continuum quantum field theory, which corresponds to an energy-weighted integral of the Hawking spectrum, and identify its counterpart as a local spin observable whose expectation value quantitatively reproduces the continuum prediction, including its dependence on the surface gravity. The agreement persists over a finite time window whose duration grows logarithmically with system size, revealing the crossover from universal continuum Hawking physics to lattice-cutoff dynamics. These results establish a microscopic route to quantum simulation of quantum field theory in curved spacetime, connecting field-theoretic particle creation directly to experimentally accessible many-body observables.
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All authors Shunichiro Kinoshita, Keiju Murata, Daisuke Yamamoto, Ryosuke Yoshii

Statistical Mechanics · Cross-listed from math.PR

Shape theorem for excited random walks on the integer lattice

We study the limit shape of the range of the random walk excited to the center on $\mathbb Z^d$, with $d\geq2$. A cookie is placed at each nonzero vertex. On its first visit to such a vertex, the walker consumes the cookie and takes its next nearest-neighbor step with a bias toward the origin. On a visit to the origin, or on later visits to a nonzero vertex, no cookie is available and the walker moves to a neighbor uniformly at random. We prove that the set of vertices visited up to time $n$, rescaled by $n^{-1/(d+1)}$, converges in probability in Hausdorff distance to an explicit $\ell^1$ ball. This answers a question raised by Kozma (2007).
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Statistical Mechanics · Cross-listed from math-ph

Spontaneous symmetry breaking at any temperature in a local one-dimensional model

We present a one-dimensional classical statistical physics model on an infinite lattice with nearest-neighbor interactions and local state space $\mathbb{Z}^2$, with a “helical" symmetry group $\mathbb{Z}^2\rtimes \mathbb{Z}$ mixing flavor symmetry with spatial translation. For any $0<\beta<\infty$, we construct an uncountable infinity of DLR (Gibbs) states parameterized by $\mathbb{R}^2$, with a free $\mathbb{Z}^2$ flavor symmetry group action; as such, we interpret the model as exhibiting spontaneous symmetry breaking at any temperature. The most general DLR state we construct is interpreted as an infinite sequence of localized domain walls separating a pair of asymptotic “symmetry sectors". Although any normalizable Gibbs state necessarily breaks a countably infinite freely-acting symmetry group, a natural regularization of the problem to (arbitrarily) large but finite systems with periodic boundary conditions has measure concentration in disjoint and far-separated symmetry-related clusters in the (now unique) Gibbs state, which justifies our interpretation of spontaneous symmetry breaking on the infinite line. A modification of the model with local state space $\mathbb{R}^2$ must break a continuous helical symmetry at any temperature. This is not a contradiction with the Mermin-Wagner Theorem, because this continuous helical symmetry is non-compact and does not commute with translation.
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Statistical Mechanics

Phase diagram and transition properties of the Blume-Capel model: A Monte Carlo study

The Jx-Jy Blume-Capel model, with and without an external magnetic field, is investigated using the Monte Carlo method. Our aim is to verify the location of the tricritical point, examine the existence of reentrant behavior, and study the magnetocaloric properties of this specifically designed system. In the non-field case, the critical temperature given by the Monte Carlo simulations is lower compared to the conventional antiferromagnetic square lattice. When an external magnetic field is applied, we observed signs of a one-dimensional spontaneous symmetry-breaking phase in the mixed-states regime, which is counterintuitive with secondary specific-heat peak. We take the snapshot of this state and elucidated the underlying mechanisms using mean field theory in the field of spin-1 spinor Bose-Einstein condensate . Regarding reentrant behavior, we confirmed its occurrence as the magnetic field varies, but only when the temperature is kept constant. Temperature-dependent reentrant behavior could not be identified within this system. Finally, we examined the magnetocaloric properties and found no evidence of first-order phase transitions within the region of the considered phase-transition point. Although both inverse and direct magnetocaloric effects are present and related to the mixed state, we identified that the relevant phase transitions are all of the second order.
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Monday 5 October

Statistical Mechanics · Cross-listed from physics.comp-ph

A Gauge-Inspired Coupled Fokker–Planck System for Multistate Stochastic Dynamics: Formalism and 1-D Numerical Implementation

Extending the Fokker–Planck equation to a coupled system of equations through non-Abelian symmetry groups offers a powerful theoretical framework for coupled multi-state stochastic systems. However, translating this abstract gauge field formulation into viable numerical predictions remains an unaddressed challenge. Motivated by our previous work on ice crystal habit evolution, in this work we bridge this gap by presenting the first numerical solver for an SU(2) gauge-coupled Fokker–Planck system in (1+1) dimensions. Using an operator-splitting scheme combined with a non-oscillatory advection solver, our algorithm strictly ensures probability conservation, non-negativity, and numerical stability. We demonstrate that non-Abelian gauge coupling acts as a cross-reactive feedback loop that fundamentally alters system dynamics, driving continuous probability exchange between states, suppressing localised density peaks, and forcing long-time spatial delocalisation. Validated across linear and quadratic coupling regimes up to strong interactions (g <= 1.0), this work establishes the foundational computational infrastructure needed to integrate complex multi-state physics. Overall, while our approach provides a key step toward improving ice cloud representation in atmospheric and climate models, the underlying physical framework and computational engine remain fundamentally general and multidisciplinary, offering a versatile paradigm for any domain requiring coupled multi-state stochastic equations.
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