Maximally random discrete-spin systems with symmetric and asymmetric interactions and maximally degenerate ordering

Abstract

Discrete-spin systems with maximally random nearest-neighbor interactions that can be symmetric or asymmetric, ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic, including off-diagonal disorder, are studied, for the number of states q=3,4 in d dimensions. We use renormalization-group theory that is exact for hierarchical lattices and approximate (Migdal-Kadanoff) for hypercubic lattices. For all d>1 and all noninfinite temperatures, the system eventually renormalizes to a random single state, thus signaling q×q degenerate ordering. Note that this is the maximally degenerate ordering. For high-temperature initial conditions, the system crosses over to this highly degenerate ordering only after spending many renormalization-group iterations near the disordered (infinite-temperature) fixed point. Thus, a temperature range of short-range disorder in the presence of long-range order is identified, as previously seen in underfrustrated Ising spin-glass systems. The entropy is calculated for all temperatures, behaves similarly for ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic interactions, and shows a derivative maximum at the short-range disordering temperature. With a sharp immediate contrast of infinitesimally higher dimension 1+ε, the system is as expected disordered at all temperatures for d=1.