# Dynamic critical behaviors of three-dimensional 𝑋⁢𝑌 models related to superconductors/superfluids

## Abstract

The dynamic critical exponent $`z`$ is determined from numerical simulations for the three-dimensional $`XY`$ model subject to two types of dynamics, i.e., relaxational dynamics and resistively shunted junction (RSJ) dynamics, as well as for two different treatments of the boundary, i.e., periodic boundary condition (PBC) and fluctuating twist boundary condition (FTBC). In case of relaxational dynamics, finite size scaling at the critical temperature gives $`z2`$ for PBC and $`1.5`$ for FTBC, while for RSJ dynamics $`z1.5`$ is obtained in both cases. The results are discussed in the context of superfluid/superconductors and vortex dynamics, and are compared with what have been found for other related models.

A neutral superfluid like <sup>4</sup>He and a superconductor in the limit of large London penetration depth can be characterized by a complex order parameter, and the $`XY`$ model can be viewed as a discretized version of this type of systems . All these systems are expected to belong to the same universality class for the thermodynamic critical properties of the phase transition. An interesting feature of these models is the presence of thermally generated topological defects. In two dimensions (2D) the topological defects take the form of vortices and give rise to the Kosterlitz-Thouless transition . Also in 3D thermally generated vortex loops are present at the transition and it has been argued that the critical properties, both the static and the dynamic, can be associated with these vortex loops . The low-temperature phase in the 3D case consists of closed vortex loops of finite extent whereas in the high-temperature phase the loops can disintegrate .

In the present Letter we investigate the dynamic critical properties for two simple cases when the static properties are given by the 3D $`XY`$ model. One connection between the vortex loops and the dynamical properties is through the $`2\pi `$ phase slip across the system occurring when a vortex loop expands so much that it leaves the system. The connection is most easily phrased in case of a superconductor: the rate at which the vortex loops expands and leaves the system, when driven by a dc current, is proportional to the voltage across the sample. Consequently the vortex loops are connected to the resistance which for a system in equilibrium can be obtained by the fluctuation-dissipation theorem.

Similarly to the static case one expects universality also for the dynamic critical properties in the sense that the critical dynamics does not depend on the details but rather on general characteristics like conservation laws, spatial dimensions, and the static critical properties . The motion of the vortex loops are associated with a conservation law since the vorticity of a fixed area can only change by vortex segments leaving or entering the area. This conservation law restricts the motion of the vortex loops and consequently one may expect that the longest relaxation time of the system can be associated with the vortex loops. In the dynamic universality classes defined by Hohenberg and Halperin  the dynamics of a 3D superfluid belongs to model F characterized by the dynamic critical exponent $`z=3/2`$. A model with purely relaxational dynamics on the other hand belongs to model A with $`z2`$ .

The two cases we study are relaxational dynamics which does not have local current conservation, and the resistively shunted junction (RSJ) dynamics which has local current conservation. The Hamiltonian for the 3D $`XY`$ model on an $`L\times L\times L`$ cubic lattice can be expressed as

$$H=J\underset{ij}{}\mathrm{cos}(\theta _i\theta _j𝐫_{ij}𝚫),$$
(1)   
where the sum is over all nearest-neighbor pairs, $`\theta _i\theta _j𝐫_{ij}𝚫`$ is the difference in the spin direction between the neighboring sites $`i`$ and $`j`$, and $`J`$ is the coupling strength. The twist variable $`𝚫=(\mathrm{\Delta }_x,\mathrm{\Delta }_y,\mathrm{\Delta }_z)`$ is a vector such that $`L\mathrm{\Delta }_x`$ measures the average rotation of the spin direction when going from one boundary surface to the opposite in the $`x`$ direction and similarly for the other directions, $`𝐫_{ij}`$ is the unit vector from site $`i`$ to the nearest-neighbor site $`j`$ (the lattice spacing is taken to be unity), and $`\theta _i`$ is a phase angle associated with each site $`i`$ measured with respect to the local spin-direction associated with a uniform twist $`𝚫`$ across the sample. We use the boundary conditions $`\theta _i=\theta _{i+L\widehat{𝐱}}=\theta _{i+L\widehat{𝐲}}=\theta _{i+L\widehat{𝐳}}`$.

In the superfluid/superconductor analogy of the $`XY`$ model, $`\theta _i\theta _j𝐫_{ij}𝚫`$ is the total (gauge invariant) phase difference of the order parameter and the twist $`𝚫`$ may be thought of as the contribution to the gauge-invariant phase from a spatially uniform vector potential.

The usual periodic boundary conditions (PBC) for the $`XY`$ model correspond to periodic spin directions and to $`𝚫=0`$. However this imposes an unphysical restriction on the topological defects (the vortex loops): the original defect-free state is not regained with PBC, when a defect is created in a defect-free state and then annihilated across the boundary . The additional degrees of freedom introduced by $`𝚫`$, on the other hand, ensure that the energy associated with a given configuration of topological defects is unique . The more physical boundary condition which includes the fluctuations of the twist is termed the fluctuating twist boundary condition (FTBC) .

In the RSJ case the total current $`i_{ij}`$ from $`i`$ to $`j`$ is the sum of the supercurrent, the normal resistive current, and a thermal noise current:

$$i_{ij}=i_c\mathrm{sin}(\theta _i\theta _j𝐫_{ij}𝚫)+\frac{V_{ij}}{r}+\eta _{ij},$$
(2)   
where $`i_c2eJ/\mathrm{}`$ is the critical current of a single junction, $`V_{ij}`$ is the potential difference across the junction, $`r`$ is the shunt resistance. The current conservation law at each site, together with the Josephson relation $`d(\theta _i\theta _j𝐫_{ij}𝚫)/dt=2eV_{ij}/\mathrm{}`$, allows us to write the equations of motion in the form

$$\dot{\theta }_i=\underset{j}{}G_{ij}\underset{k}{}^{^{}}[\mathrm{sin}(\theta _j\theta _k𝐫_{jk}𝚫)+\eta _{jk}],$$
(3)   
where the primed summation is over six nearest neighbors of $`j`$, $`G_{ij}`$ is the lattice Green function on the cubic lattice. For convenience we from now on use units such that $`i_c=J=r=\mathrm{}/2e=1`$. The remaining dynamical equation for $`𝚫`$ is obtained from the local current conservation together with the global current conservation condition that no currents pass through the boundaries :

$$\dot{𝚫}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{H}{𝚫}+\eta _𝚫$$
(4)   
with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{\Delta }=1/L^3`$. In order to ensure the correct thermal equilibrium the noise correlations obey the relations: $`\eta _{ij}(t)=0`$, $`\eta _{ij}(t)\eta _{kl}(0)=2T(\delta _{ik}\delta _{jl}\delta _{il}\delta _{jk})\delta (t)`$, and correspondingly for the three components of $`\eta _𝚫`$: $`\eta _{\mathrm{\Delta }_m}(t)=0`$, $`\eta _{\mathrm{\Delta }_m}(t)\eta _{\mathrm{\Delta }_n}(0)=(2T/L^3)\delta _{mn}\delta (t)`$ with $`m,n=x,y,z`$.

The RSJ equations defined in this way incorporates local current conservation and the boundary conditions are chosen such that the vorticity for each of the six sides of the cubic lattice is zero at any instant and that there is no current flow through them. The RSJ equations are usually phrased in the superconducting language, however, they also apply to a neutral superfluid; the RSJ equations in this case correspond to a constant mass density and local conservation of mass current.

We also note that eq. (4), which is related to the resistance and hence to the vortex loops, has a relaxational form. However, one should note that the relaxational constant $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{\Delta }=L^3`$ is unusual since it vanishes with the size of the system and that eq. (4) by itself can be viewed as a global current conservation law expressing that the average total current of the system vanishes at each instant.

How important is strict local current conservation for the critical dynamics? We investigate this by comparing the results from the RSJ dynamics to relaxational dynamics, where eq. (3) is replaced by the purely relaxational form:

$$\frac{d\theta _i(t)}{dt}=\mathrm{\Gamma }\frac{H}{\theta _i}+\eta _i(t)$$
(5)   
with $`\eta _i(t)=0`$ and $`\eta _i(t)\eta _j(0)=2T\delta _{ij}\delta (t)`$ (we have set $`\mathrm{\Gamma }1`$). Thus the dynamics is in this case given by the two relaxational equations (4) and (5). Superficially one might have guessed that this relaxational dynamics should belong to model A. However, as will be shown below, the $`z`$ value obtained from size scaling at $`T_c`$ is not compatible with this expectation. This suggests that the global conservation law reflected in the size dependent relaxation constant in eq. (4) is enough to slow down the critical dynamics.

The dynamical equations are integrated numerically using the second order algorithm in ref.  with a discrete time step $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=0.05`$ for RSJ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=0.05`$ and $`0.01`$ for relaxational dynamics, using lattice sizes up to $`L=32`$ and $`24`$, respectively.

The resistance $`R`$ is related to the equilibrium fluctuations of $`𝚫(t)`$ by the fluctuation-dissipation theorem :

$$R=\frac{L^2}{2T}\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Theta }}[\mathrm{\Delta }_m(\mathrm{\Theta })\mathrm{\Delta }_m(0)]^2,$$

where $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is a large enough time interval ($`\mathrm{\Theta }=2000`$ in the present simulation). Near the second order phase transition the intensive quantity $`LR(T,L)`$ obeys the scaling relation:

$$LR(T,L)=L^{(z1)}\stackrel{~}{\rho }[L^{1/\nu }(TT_c)].$$
(6)   
Thus if we plot the ratio $`\mathrm{ln}[R(T,L)/R(T,L^{})]/\mathrm{ln}(L/L^{})`$ as a function of $`T`$ for different pairs $`(L,L^{})`$ then the curves should cross at ($`T_c`$, $`z`$. The inset in fig. 1 shows the RSJ result for the pairs $`(L,L^{})=`$$`(4,8)`$, $`(8,16)`$, and $`(4,16)`$. The crossing point gives $`T_c=2.20`$, which is very close to the true critical temperature $`T_c2.202`$ for the 3D $`XY`$ model , and $`z=1.46`$. Figure 1 confirms this determination by aid of the full scaling relation eq. (6) using $`T_c`$ and $`z`$ obtained above together with $`\nu =0.67`$ for the 3D $`XY`$ model ($`\nu 0.671\pm 0.001`$ ). As seen a very good scaling collapse is obtained. We have estimated the precision in the determination by treating $`z`$ and $`T_c`$ as free parameters in the full scaling relation with the result $`z=1.46\pm 0.06`$. One reason for treating $`T_c`$ as a free variable is that in principle the finite time step $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ in the integration introduces an uncertainty in $`T_c`$ . Figure 2 gives the corresponding result for relaxational dynamics. In this case the integration turns out to be more sensitive to the choice of $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$. In order to handle this we calculate $`R`$ at $`T_c=2.20`$ where $`RL^z`$ \[see eq. (6)\] with $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=0.05`$ and $`0.01`$, extrapolate linearly to $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=0`$, and obtain $`z1.5`$.

Our conclusion is that RSJ dynamics and relaxational dynamics have the same size scaling of the resistance at the critical temperature and that the $`z`$ value obtained from this scaling is consistent with $`z1.5`$. This implies that the constraint imposed by the local current conservation is less crucial than one might have thought. We suggest the following hand-waving explanation: Equation (5) describes individual spins relaxing towards a state with a given value of $`𝚫`$. Each fixed configuration of vortex loops correspond to a twist $`𝚫`$. Since $`𝚫`$ has a slow relaxation governed by eq. (4) this suggests that the dynamics is compatible with a situation where the change of a vortex loop configuration is slow compared to the relaxation of the individual spins. From this perspective RSJ dynamics and the relaxational dynamics described above are just two alternative ways of imposing a slow dynamics on the vortex loops.

Next we consider the case when $`𝚫=0`$ which corresponds to the standard PBC imposed on the spins. Relaxational dynamics is in this case given by eq. (5) with $`𝚫=0`$. This is compatible with the situation when the spins are relaxing directly towards the global ground state with $`𝚫=0`$. In this case we cannot use eq. (6) to find $`z`$ (because $`𝚫=0`$). Instead we resort to the following size scaling relation valid at $`T_c`$:

$$G(t)=\frac{1}{L}h(tL^z),$$
(7)   
where $`G(t)=F(t)F(0)/L^3`$ is the time-correlation function, with $`F(t)=_{ij_x}\mathrm{sin}(\theta _i\theta _j)`$ and the sum is over all links in one direction. In the superconductor analogy this is related to the supercurrent correlations. Figure 3 shows that a good scaling is obtained for $`z=2`$. From this we conclude that relaxational dynamics with standard PBC has $`z2`$ consistent with the model A universality class. Our suggested interpretation is that, when the average twist $`𝚫`$ is not one of the dynamical variables, the global current constraint reflected in eq. (4) is no longer present and the relaxational dynamics becomes of standard relaxational type. We compare this to the RSJ dynamics for the same case, i.e., standard PBC for which $`𝚫=0`$. Figure 4 shows that a good scaling collapse is obtained for $`z=1.5`$, which is the same as for FTBC. This suggests that local current conservation is a sufficient but not a necessary condition for imposing the slow vortex loop dynamics.

The suggestion, that the dynamics of the vortex loops can be associated with an exponent $`z1.5`$, can be further substantiated in the following way: The Hamiltonian for the $`XY`$ model with FTBC is dual to the lattice vortex loop model with PBC. This means that relaxational dynamics for the $`XY`$ model with FTBC corresponds to relaxational dynamics for the lattice vortex loop model with PBC. In the latter model the only degrees of freedom are the vortex loops and it has been shown that $`z1.5`$ is obtained from size scaling of the resistance for this model. From this perspective it is tempting to conclude that $`z1.5`$ can be associated with pure relaxational dynamics for the vortex loops. In addition one may note that an exponent $`z1.5`$ is also consistent with $`z=1.44`$ in ref.  obtained from a theoretical treatment of vortex loops.

Finally we note that in ref.  the value $`z=1.5\pm 0.5`$ was determined for the RSJ model in the presence of external currents and that in ref.  $`z=1.38\pm 0.05`$ was found from simulations of a version of the $`XY`$ model with spin dynamics which is an alternative dynamics consistent with superfluids. For the lattice vortex loop model with Monte Carlo dynamics $`z=1.45\pm 0.05`$ was obtained in ref.  and $`z=1.51\pm 0.03`$ in ref.  using the same method as in the inset of fig. 1.

This leaves us with the following two main alternatives: $`z`$ determined from size scaling for 3D $`XY`$ model with relaxational dynamics and FTBC, the lattice vortex loop model with relaxational dynamics and PBC, as well as the 3D $`XY`$ model with RSJ dynamics in all cases gives the value $`z=3/2`$ corresponding to model F. This would then be different from the 3D $`XY`$ model with spin dynamics in ref.  and the vortex loop prediction in ref. . The other possibility is that all cases correspond to a vortex loop dynamics with a $`z`$ slightly lower than 3/2. Our present precision is not enough to distinguish between these alternatives.

In conclusion we have from simulations determined the dynamic critical exponent $`z`$ by using size scaling at $`T_c`$ for the 3D $`XY`$ model with relaxational and RSJ dynamics. For relaxational dynamics with PBC we obtain $`z2`$ which is consistent with model A dynamics . However we conclude that the relaxational dynamics with FTBC, the lattice vortex loop model with relaxational dynamics and PBC, as well as RSJ dynamics with both PBC and FTBC all have the value $`z1.5`$. We suggest that the reason for this agreement is that all these models effectively corresponds to relaxational dynamics of the vortex loops. Model F corresponds to $`z=3/2`$ which is consistent with our result although the slightly lower value $`z=1.44`$ for vortex loops in ref.  is also consistent.

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This work was supported by the Swedish Natural Research Council through contract FU 04040-332.