# Universal Finite Size Scaling Functions in the 3⁢𝐷 Ising Spin Glass

## Model and FSS method —

We consider the $`3D`$ Edwards–Anderson model, whose Hamiltonian is

$$=\underset{xy}{}\sigma _xJ_{xy}\sigma _y$$
(1)   
where $`\sigma _x`$ are Ising spins on a simple cubic lattice of linear size $`L`$ with periodic boundaries, and $`J_{xy}`$ are independent random interactions taking the values $`\pm 1`$ with probability $`\frac{1}{2}`$. The sum runs over pairs of nearest neighbor sites.

Let $`\xi (T,L)`$ be a suitably defined finite–volume correlation length, and let $`𝒪(T,L)`$ be any singular observable, such as $`\xi (T,L)`$ itself or the spin–glass susceptibility (see below). Then FSS theory  predicts that

$$\frac{𝒪(T,L)}{𝒪(T,\mathrm{})}=f_𝒪\left(\xi (T,\mathrm{})/L\right),$$
(2)   
where $`f_𝒪`$ is a universal function and corrections to FSS are neglected. From Eq. (2) one obtains the relation

$$\frac{𝒪(T,2L)}{𝒪(T,L)}=F_𝒪\left(\xi (T,L)/L\right),$$
(3)   
where $`F_𝒪`$ is another universal function and only finite–volume observables are involved. Our approach works as follows (see Ref.  for details). We make MC runs at numerous pairs $`(T,L)`$, $`(T,2L)`$ and we plot $`𝒪(T,2L)/𝒪(T,L)`$ versus $`\xi (T,L)/L`$. If all these points fall with good accuracy on a single curve — thus verifying the Ansatz (3) — we choose a smooth fitting function $`F_𝒪`$. Then, using the functions $`F_\xi `$ and $`F_𝒪`$, we extrapolate the pair $`(\xi ,𝒪)`$ iteratively from $`L2L2^2L\mathrm{}\mathrm{}`$.

## Computational details —

We simulate the model in Eq.(1) with the heath–bath algorithm. We measure $`q_x=\sigma _x\tau _x`$ and $`q=L^3_xq_x`$ from two independent replicas $`(\sigma ,\tau )`$ with the same $`J_{xy}`$. We choose as a definition of $`\xi (T,L)`$ the second-moment correlation length

$$\xi (T,L)=\frac{\left[S(0)/S(p)\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}\right]^{1/2}}{2\mathrm{sin}(|p|/2)}$$
(4)   
where $`S(k)`$ is the Fourier transform

$$S(k)=\underset{r}{}e^{ikr}q_xq_{x+r},$$
(5)   
(arguments $`T,L`$ are omitted) and $`p=(0,0,2\pi /L)`$ is the smallest non–zero wave vector . The spin–glass susceptibility is $`\chi _{SG}(T,L)L^3q^2=S(0)`$. The symbol $``$ represents a double average over thermal noise and $`J_{xy}`$, which is estimated from $`N_s`$ samples with different $`J_{xy}`$.

The runs are done on a Cray T3E parallel computer with a fast code that exploits the parallelism of spin glass simulations. The binary variables $`\sigma _x`$ and $`J_{xy}`$ at corresponding sites of 64 samples (each represented by a single bit) are stored in a 64-bit integer variable, and 64 $`\sigma _x`$’s are updated simultaneously with only 31 logical instructions and one random number . Average speed on a single processor (PE) is $`4.5\times 10^7`$ spin updates per second (DEC Alpha EV5, 600 MHz). The PEs are arranged in a virtual parallelepiped along whose axis we can distribute independent groups of 64 samples, different “slices” of a large lattice, and different temperatures. We typically used 32 to 128 PEs. Equilibration of the runs is verified with the criterion introduced in Ref. . The sizes simulated range from $`L=4`$ to $`L=48`$, from which we form 104 pairs $`(T,L)`$, $`(T,2L)`$. In Table I some parameters of the simulations are given. The equivalent of about 2 years of computer time on a single PE was employed.

## FSS analysis —

In Fig. 1 we show that, within our statistical accuracy, the FSS Ansatz (3) is well verified for $`𝒪=\chi _{SG}`$ and $`𝒪=\xi `$. No systematic deviations from the curves are detectable, but data at $`L=4`$, not displayed in Fig. 1, are significantly outside the curves for $`\xi (T,L)/Lx>0.2`$. We verified that other observables, such as the Binder ratio, also satisfy Eq.(3). We emphasize that FSS was not assumed a priori and that Eq.(3) contains no adjustable parameters. Furthermore, no particular dependence of $`\xi `$ and $`\chi _{SG}`$ on $`T`$ was assumed.

We fit the data in Fig. 1 to two functions $`F_{\chi _{SG}}`$, $`F_\xi `$ of the form $`F(x)=1+_{i=1,n}a_i\mathrm{exp}(i/x)`$, obtaining good fits with $`n=3`$ or $`4`$ (goodness of fit parameter $`Q>0.9`$). Using $`F_{\chi _{SG}}`$, $`F_\xi `$, we then compute $`\chi _{SG}(T,\mathrm{})`$, $`\xi (T,\mathrm{})`$ with the iterative procedure described above. In Table II we show that extrapolations from different $`L`$ are consistent, providing a test of the method. In our final analysis, we take the weighted average of the extrapolations from different $`L`$. An implicit assumption of the iterative procedure is that the Ansatz (3) with a given function $`F_𝒪`$ will continue to hold as $`L\mathrm{}`$. This assumption could fail if the system exhibits a crossover at large $`L`$, as in any FSS analysis. However, as shown in Table II, extrapolations at $`T=1.4084`$ from small $`L`$ are consistent with data from large $`L`$, which have little or no finite-size effects. We therefore believe that a crossover is unlikely.

In order to test for systematic errors due to corrections to FSS, we repeated the analysis excluding $`L=5,6`$ from the fits of $`F_{\chi _{SG}}`$, $`F_\xi `$ and we found that extrapolated data change within their error bars. We have a good control on the extrapolated data up to $`\xi 140`$; at lower temperatures the statistical errors become quite large, and the data are more sensitive to the region of high $`x`$, where there are few data from large $`L`$. (The largest $`x`$ used for the extrapolations is $`x=0.57`$, from $`T=1.2059,L=5`$).

In Fig. 2 we show that with our extrapolated data Eq.(2) is satisfied remarkably well, providing a further test of the method. If $`𝒪\xi ^{\gamma _𝒪/\nu }`$ as $`\xi \mathrm{}`$, then $`f_𝒪(x)`$ in Eq.(2) must satisfy $`f_𝒪(x)x^{\gamma _𝒪/\nu }`$ as $`x\mathrm{}`$. As shown in Fig. 2 (insets), our curves indeed have a power-law asymptotic decay, with negative slopes $`\gamma /\nu =2.30\pm 0.08`$ in Fig. 2(a) and $`1`$ in Fig. 2(b).

We emphasize the universality of the scaling functions in Fig. 1 and 2. It would be interesting to determine the same functions for different distributions of the $`J_{xy}`$, in order to test for possible violations of universality .

## Nature of the phase transition —

We now compare our extrapolated data with the following scenarios: (i) a $`T_c0`$ continuous phase transition; (ii) a line of critical points terminating at $`T_c0`$, with an exponential divergence as $`TT_c^+`$; (iii) an exponential divergence at $`T=0`$. The last two scenarios imply a lower critical dimension exactly equal to three.

(i) We fit our data to

$`\xi (T)`$ $`=`$ $`c_\xi (TT_c)^\nu \left[1+a_\xi (TT_c)^\theta \right]`$ (6)   
$`\chi _{SG}(\xi )`$ $`=`$ $`b\xi ^{2\eta }\left[1+d\xi ^\mathrm{\Delta }\right]`$ (7)   
with fixed correction–to–scaling exponents $`\theta `$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ . In the fit we include data with $`\xi \xi _m`$, varying $`\xi _m`$ in order to test the stability of the fits. Without the corrections to scaling ($`a_\xi =d=0`$), the quality of fits is good for $`\xi _m>34`$ ($`Q1`$), but fit parameters (noticeably $`T_c,\nu `$ and $`\eta `$) show small systematic variations with $`\xi _m`$ in the whole range available. Including the corrections, we obtain excellent and stable fits with $`1\theta 2`$ and $`1\mathrm{\Delta }1.5`$, the preferred values being $`\theta =1.4`$ ($`Q>0.6`$) and $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1.3`$ ($`Q>0.98`$). Our estimates for the fitting parameters are $`T_c=1.156\pm 0.015`$, $`\nu =1.8\pm 0.2`$, $`\eta =0.26\pm 0.04`$, $`c_\xi =0.7\pm 0.2`$, $`a_\xi =0.5\pm 0.3`$, $`b=3.3\pm 0.3`$ and $`d=0.9\pm 0.1`$, where the errors take into account the uncertainties on $`\theta `$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. We then obtain $`\gamma =\nu (2\eta )=4.1\pm 0.5`$. As shown in Fig. 3 and 4, corrections to scaling are important for $`\xi 10`$ . Since the fits do not include the analytic corrections to scaling, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and $`\theta `$ should be regarded as “effective” exponents. For comparison, we quote some estimates from other MC works: $`T_c=1.175\pm 0.025`$ , $`1.11\pm 0.04`$ , $`1.13\pm 0.06`$ , $`1.19\pm 0.01`$ ; $`\nu =1.3\pm 0.1`$ , $`1.20\pm 0.04`$ , $`1.7\pm 0.3`$ , $`2.00\pm 0.15`$ , $`1.33\pm 0.05`$ ; $`\eta =0.22\pm 0.05`$ , $`0.35\pm 0.05`$ , $`0.30\pm 0.06`$ , $`0.37\pm 0.04`$ , $`0.22\pm 0.02`$  (notice that in Ref. a gaussian distribution of the bonds was considered).

(ii) We fit our data to

$$\xi (T)=f_\xi \mathrm{exp}\left(g_\xi /(TT_c)^\sigma \right)$$
(8)   
testing the fit stability as above. The fits are excellent with $`\xi _m1.3`$ but, due to strong correlations between $`\sigma `$ and $`T_c`$, the errors on the fit parameters are large. For $`\xi _m=1.9`$ the best fit gives $`\sigma =0.20\pm 0.05`$, $`T_c=1.13\pm 0.02`$, $`f_\xi =(1.0\pm 0.2)\times 10^3`$, $`g_\xi =7\pm 2`$ ($`Q=0.77`$). Notice, however, that any power-law can be approximated by an exponential with sufficiently small $`\sigma `$. For $`\xi _m=3.8`$ the best fit (shown in Fig. 4) gives $`\sigma =0.5\pm 0.3`$, $`T_c=1.08\pm 0.04`$, $`f_\xi =(1.1\pm 0.8)\times 10^1`$, $`g_\xi =2.4\pm 1.5`$ ($`Q=0.69`$). The deviations of the data from this fit for $`\xi <3`$ are consistent with corrections to scaling of $`10\%`$. In general, in the presence of an exponential singularity we expect multiplicative logarithmic corrections to Eq.(7). Our data fit well to

$$\chi _{SG}(\xi )=b_l\xi ^{2\eta _l}\left(\mathrm{log}\xi \right)^r$$
(9)   
for $`\xi _m>2`$, giving $`b_l=1.30\pm 0.03`$, $`\eta _l=0.36\pm 0.03`$, $`r=0.36\pm 0.06`$ ($`Q>0.9`$) (see also Fig. 3).

(iii) When we fit our data to

$$\xi (T)=f_\xi \mathrm{exp}\left(g_\xi /T^\sigma \right)$$
(10)   
we find that $`\sigma `$ increases continuously with $`\xi _m`$, from $`\sigma 3`$ to $`\sigma 9`$ . Even assuming that $`\sigma `$ stabilizes for higher $`\xi `$, we believe that a value $`\sigma >9`$ is implausibly large. In fact, Eq. (10) implies a renormalization group (RG) transformation $`dT/dlT^{\sigma +1}`$ ($`e^l`$ being the RG scale factor), while for $`T0`$ (at the lower critical dimension) we expect $`dT/dl=a_2T^2+a_3T^3+\mathrm{}`$ ($`a_2=0`$ in the phenomenological RG theory of Ref. ).

To conclude, we have shown that FSS is verified in the $`3D`$ Ising spin glass and that the correlation length diverges at a finite temperature. Whether this is a conventional continuous phase transition (in which case the lower critical dimension is probably close to three) or a transition to a line of critical points, is still not known.

We thank A. Pelissetto, A.P. Young and O.C. Martin for useful discussions. This work was supported by the INFM Parallel Computing Initiative.