Stochastic Dynamics at Zero Temperature
Speaker:
Charles Newman, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, NYU
Date and Time:
Tuesday, November 17, 1998 - 4:00pm to 5:00pm
Location:
Fields Institute, Room 230
Abstract:
At zero temperature, the natural Markov process of Ising spin configurations on Zd (or other lattices) is that each spin flips with rate 1 or 0 or 1/2 according to whether the flip would lower the energy or raise it or leave it unchanged. What happens as time t tends to infinity when the initial state is chosen by independent tosses of a fair coin? Do spins flip finitely or infinitely many times? Does the state after a large time depend more on the initial state or on the realization of the dynamics ("nature vs. nurture")? Do the answers to such questions depend on the dimension, on the lattice, on whether the Ising model is disordered?