Anomalous relaxation in the<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mi>XY</mml:mi></mml:math>gauge glass

Abstract

To study relaxation dynamics of the two-dimensional XY gauge glass, we integrate directly the equations of motion and investigate the energy function. As usual, it decays exponentially at high temperatures; at low but non-zero temperatures, it is found to exhibit an algebraic relaxation. We compute the relaxation time $\tau$ as a function of the temperature $T$ and find that the rapid increase of $\tau$ at low temperatures is well described by $\tau \sim (T-T_g)^{-b}$ with $T_g = 0.22 \pm 0.02$ and $b = 0.76 \pm 0.05$, which strongly suggests a finite-temperature glass transition. The decay of vorticity is also examined and explained in terms of a simple heuristic model, which attributes the fast relaxation at high temperatures to annihilation of unpinned vortices.