Persistence in Ferromagnetic Ordering: Dependence upon initial configuration

Abstract

We study the dynamics of ordering in ferromagnets via Monte Carlo simulations of the Ising model, employing the Glauber spin-flip mechanism, in space dimensions $d=2$ and $3$. Results for the persistence probability and the domain growth are discussed for quenches to various temperatures ($T_f$) below the critical one ($T_c$), from different initial temperatures $T_i\ge T_c$. In long time limit, for $T_i>T_c$, the persistence probability exhibits power-law decay with exponents $\theta \simeq 0.22$ and $\simeq 0.18$ in $d=2$ and $3$, respectively. For finite $T_i$, the early time behavior is a different power-law whose life-time diverges and exponent decreases as $T_i\to T_c$. The crossover length between the two steps diverges as the equilibrium correlation length. $T_i=T_c$ is expected to provide a {\it{new universality class}} for which we obtain $\theta \simeq 0.035$ in $d=2$ and $\simeq 0.10$ in $d=3$. The time dependence of the average domain size $\ell$, however, is observed to be rather insensitive to the choice of $T_i$.

8 pages, 9 figures