# Further evidence of the absence of Replica Symmetry Breaking in Random Bond Potts Models

## 1 Perturbative CFT results

We shall not repeat here the renormalization group computations of higher moments, which can be found, although not in details, in references . We rather give a short overview, only stating relevant results.

The partition function of the nearly-critical $`q`$-states random bond Potts model, is well known to be of the form

$$Z(\beta )=\text{Tr }\mathrm{exp}\{H_0H_1\},$$
(1)   
where $`H_0`$ is the Hamiltonian of the conformal field theory corresponding to the $`q`$-states Potts model with coupling constant $`J_0`$ the same for each bond. The Hamiltonian $`H_1`$, being the deviation from the critical point induced by disorder is of the form

$$H_1=d^2x\tau (x)ϵ(x),$$
(2)   
where $`\tau (x)\beta J(x)\beta _cJ_0`$ is the random temperature parameter. The theory is defined on the whole plane. We shall assume, for simplicity, that $`\tau (x)`$ has a gaussian distribution for each $`x`$, with

$`\overline{\tau (x)}`$ $`=`$ $`\tau _0={\displaystyle \frac{\beta \beta _c}{\beta _c}}`$ (3)   
$`\overline{(\tau (x)\tau _0)(\tau (x^{})\tau _0)}`$ $`=`$ $`g_0\delta ^{(2)}(xx^{}).`$ (4)   
The usual way of averaging over disorder is to introduce replicas, that is, $`n`$ identical copies of the same model, for which:

$$(Z(\beta ))^n=\text{Tr }\mathrm{exp}\left\{\underset{a=1}{\overset{n}{}}H_0^{(a)}d^2x\tau (x)\underset{a=1}{\overset{n}{}}\epsilon _a(x)\right\}.$$
(5)   
Taking the average over disorder by performing gaussian integration, one gets

$$\overline{(Z(\beta ))^n}=\text{Tr }\mathrm{exp}\left\{\underset{a=1}{\overset{n}{}}H_0^{(a)}\tau _0d^2x\underset{a=1}{\overset{n}{}}\epsilon _a(x)+g_0d^2x\underset{ab}{\overset{n}{}}\epsilon _a(x)\epsilon _b(x)\right\}.$$
(6)   
This is a field theory of $`n`$ coupled models with coupling action given by

$$H_{\text{int}}=g_0d^2x\underset{ab}{\overset{n}{}}\epsilon _a(x)\epsilon _b(x).$$
(7)   
Only non-diagonal terms are kept since diagonal ones can be included in the Hamiltonian $`H_0`$. Moreover, they can be shown to have irrelevant contributions, since their OPE consist of the identity plus terms that are irrelevant at the pure fixed point. We now turn our attention to the $`p`$-th moment of the spin-spin correlation function $`\overline{\sigma (0)\sigma (R)^p}`$. In terms of replicas, it can be written as

$$\overline{\sigma (0)\sigma (R)^p}=\underset{n0}{lim}\frac{(np)!}{n!p!}\underset{a_1\mathrm{}a_p}{\overset{n}{}}\sigma _{a_1}(0)\mathrm{}\sigma _{a_p}(0)\underset{b_1\mathrm{}b_p}{\overset{n}{}}\sigma _{b_1}(R)\mathrm{}\sigma _{b_p}(R)$$
(8)   
Thus, the operator to be renormalized is

$`𝒪_p(x)`$ $``$ $`\sigma _{a_1}(x)\sigma _{a_2}(x)\mathrm{}\sigma _{a_p}(x)`$ (10)   
$`a_1a_2\mathrm{}a_p,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}1}a_in,`$   
perturbed by the interaction term

$`\stackrel{~}{𝒪}_p(x)`$ $``$ $`𝒪_p\mathrm{exp}\{H_{\text{int}}\}`$ (11)   
$`=`$ $`𝒪_p\left(1H_{\text{int}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(H_{\text{int}})^2\mathrm{}\right).`$ (12)   
Renormalization group computations lead to the identification of a non-trivial fixed point, at which we are able to compute the correlation functions. Using scaling laws, we get

$`\overline{\sigma (0)\sigma (R)^p}`$ $``$ $`\underset{n0}{lim}{\displaystyle \frac{(np)!}{n!}}{\displaystyle \underset{a_1a_2\mathrm{}a_p}{}}(Z(\xi _R))^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{R^{2p\mathrm{\Delta }_\sigma }}}`$ (13)   
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(Z(\xi _R))^2}{R^{2p\mathrm{\Delta }_\sigma }}}.`$   
The final result is obtained by using the fixed point value $`Z(\xi _R)e^{\gamma _{}\xi _R}=R^\gamma _{}`$. The RG study introduces a parameter $`ϵ`$, which can be seen as proportional to the central charge deviation of the pure model from the Ising value of $`1/2`$. For the $`3`$-state Potts model, $`ϵ=2/15`$. For generic $`ϵ`$, one gets (in , $`\alpha `$ should be replaced by $`\alpha `$):

$$\overline{\sigma (0)\sigma (R)^p}\frac{1}{R^{2p\mathrm{\Delta }_{\sigma ^p}^{}}}.$$
(14)   
with

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{\sigma ^p}^{}=\mathrm{\Delta }_\sigma \gamma _{}(p),$$
(15)   
$$\gamma _{}(p)=\frac{9}{32}(p1)\left(\frac{2}{3}ϵ+\left(\frac{11}{12}\frac{2K}{3}+\frac{\alpha }{24}(p2)\right)ϵ^2\right)+𝒪(ϵ^3),$$
(16)   
and

$$K=6\mathrm{log}2\alpha =33\frac{29\sqrt{3}\pi }{3}.$$
(17)   
Thus, perturbed conformal field theory predicts, for the $`3`$-state Potts models, the following values for the second and third moments:

$$2\mathrm{\Delta }_{\sigma ^2}^{}=\frac{4}{15}0.0314=0.235$$
(18)   
$$2\mathrm{\Delta }_{\sigma ^3}^{}=\frac{4}{15}0.0466=0.220$$
(19)   
## 2 Monte Carlo Simulations

To search for signs of RSB, and, in the absence of it, to confirm RS values, we performed Monte Carlo simulations of the random bond $`q`$-Potts model for $`q=2,4,8`$. The method used follows the one in . To study scaling effects on the correlation functions, we studied square lattices of side $`L`$ ranging from $`10`$ to $`500`$. Since we wanted to exhibit a possible break of the replica symmetry, the algorithm has to be chosen in such a way that it doesn’t assume the symmetry a priori. For this reason, we simulated three configurations of the $`q`$-Potts model with same disorder, but different initial conditions and independent thermalizations. We computed the products of magnetization

$$Q_3=\frac{1}{L^2}\underset{i=1,L^2}{}\sigma _i^a\sigma _i^b\sigma _i^c,$$
(20)   
and

$$Q_2=\frac{1}{L^2}\underset{i=1,L^2}{}\sigma _i^a\sigma _i^b,$$
(21)   
with $`\sigma _i^a`$ being the thermal average of the local magnetization

$$\sigma _i^a\stackrel{}{\sigma }_i^a\stackrel{}{m}^a,$$
(22)   
where $`\stackrel{}{m}^a`$ is the mean magnetization of lattice $`a`$;

$$\stackrel{}{m}^a=\frac{1}{L^2}\underset{i=1,L^2}{}\stackrel{}{\sigma }_i^a.$$
(23)   
It is rather obvious, since all lattices are thermalized independently, that $`Q_3`$ and $`Q_2`$ are indeed the same as

$$Q_3=\frac{1}{L^2}\underset{i=1,L^2}{}\sigma _i^a\sigma _i^b\sigma _i^c$$
(24)   
$$Q_2=\frac{1}{L^2}\underset{i=1,L^2}{}\sigma _i^a\sigma _i^b.$$
(25)   
Measurement were performed on square lattices with toroidal boundary conditions. The Hamiltonian of the simulated model is

$$H=\underset{\{i,j\}}{}J_{ij}\left(\delta _{\sigma _i^a,\sigma _j^a}+\delta _{\sigma _i^b,\sigma _j^b}+\delta _{\sigma _i^c,\sigma _j^c}\right),$$
(26)   
where we took the coupling between nearest neighbours to be

$$J_{ij}=J_0\text{ or }J_1$$
(27)   
with equal probabilities. This makes it possible to make the system self-dual by tuning the temperature so that the relation

$$\frac{1e^{\beta J_0}}{1+(q1)e^{\beta J_0}}=e^{\beta J_1}$$
(28)   
is obeyed. We chose $`J_0/J_1=10`$ for the simulations with $`q=3,4`$, which is strong enough to avoid cross-over effects . For the $`q=8`$ model,we rather chose $`J_0/J_1=8.5`$, again because this seems the appropriate value to avoid cross-over and minimize the spread of our data set.

Autocorrelation times were coarsely evaluated and the statistics ajusted in such a way that thermal fluctuations can be ignored (typically, for a single disorder configuration, thermalization period was at least 70 auto-correlation times long and at least 200 measures were taken (one every auto-correlation time). To average over disorder, we made measurements for 20 000 disorder configurations (10000 for $`q=8`$). Doing so, one can extract critical exponents straightforwardly:

$$\overline{Q_p}=KL^{p\mathrm{\Delta }_{\sigma ^p}^{}},$$
(29)   
where $`K`$ is a non-universal constant. The exponent can then be obtained by taking logarithms.

The results of our simulations, shown in Figures 1, 2 and 3, clearly support the RS scenario. In these figures, we present log-log plots of $`\overline{Q_p}^{2/p}`$ versus $`L`$ ($`p=2,3`$), for the three, four and eight-state Potts models. By taking the slopes of these graphs, we can extract $`2\mathrm{\Delta }_{\sigma ^p}^{}(q)`$ (which is minus the slope). None of the models presented show significant deviations from scaling which should arise if the replica symmetry was broken.

For the 3-state Potts model, the critical exponents associated to the scaling behaviour are in fair agreement with the values predicted by perturbative CFT computations. The deviations from the pure model behaviour are:

$`2\gamma ^{}(2)`$ $`=`$ $`0.0387\text{Monte Carlo}`$ (30)   
$`=`$ $`0.0314\text{CFT prediction}`$ (31)   
$`2\gamma ^{}(3)`$ $`=`$ $`0.0648\text{Monte Carlo}`$ (32)   
$`=`$ $`0.0466\text{CFT prediction}`$ (33)   
The numerical agreement is indeed quite surprising, especially for the third moment, where the perturbative expansion is near the end of its validity region . Olson and Young  also computed spin-spin correlation functions moments, but in a different optic and with a different method. Our values for the exponents, presented in Table I, are in fair agreement with theirs, altough they seem to be systematically lower. Using other methods, Palagyi, Chatelain et al.  obtain values that confirm this discrepancy. Our values are equal to theirs, within statistical errors.

## 3 Conclusion

We believe that the presented evidence is enough to rule out the RSB scenario in random bond Potts models. If this symmetry was broken following Parisi’s scheme, deviations from the observed scaling laws would be, for the second moment, of the order of 10%, and thus would be easily observed. One can convince himself that the deviation should become more apparent for the third moment, something which is clearly not observed.

It will be interesting to see how more precise numerical methods, such as transfer matrices iterations , could give accurate values for moments via cumulant expansions (for integer and non-integer values of $`q`$).

\***

We would like to thank Vl.S. Dotsenko, M. Picco, J.L. Jacobsen, C. Chatelain and B. Berche for helpful comments and suggestions. We also acknowledge financial support from the NSERC Canada Scholarship Program.