Aging, memory, and nonhierarchical energy landscape of spin jam

Significance

Our bulk susceptibility and Monte Carlo simulation study of aging and memory effects in densely populated frustrated magnets (spin jam) and in a dilute magnetic alloy (spin glass) indicates a nonhierarchical landscape with a wide and nearly flat but rough bottom for the spin jam and a hierarchical rugged funnel-type landscape for the spin glass.

Abstract

The notion of complex energy landscape underpins the intriguing dynamical behaviors in many complex systems ranging from polymers, to brain activity, to social networks and glass transitions. The spin glass state found in dilute magnetic alloys has been an exceptionally convenient laboratory frame for studying complex dynamics resulting from a hierarchical energy landscape with rugged funnels. Here, we show, by a bulk susceptibility and Monte Carlo simulation study, that densely populated frustrated magnets in a spin jam state exhibit much weaker memory effects than spin glasses, and the characteristic properties can be reproduced by a nonhierarchical landscape with a wide and nearly flat but rough bottom. Our results illustrate that the memory effects can be used to probe different slow dynamics of glassy materials, hence opening a window to explore their distinct energy landscapes.