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# Cosmology from Large Scale Structure

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Much of what I presented at the DARK2002 meeting is contained in . To avoid redundancy, I will not repeat what is in those papers, but instead will devote this space to a subset of issues addressed at the meeting, namely the linear matter power spectrum reconstructed from the Ly$`\alpha `$ forest, baryonic wiggles in the galaxy power spectrum, and how to measure real space (as opposed to redshift space) power.

## 2 POWER FROM THE LYMAN ALPHA FOREST

In a remarkable paper, Croft et al.  reconstructed the linear matter power spectrum from the measured power spectrum of transmitted flux in the Lyman alpha forests of a sample of 53 Keck spectra of quasars at redshifts $`z=2.2`$$`4.1`$. The Ly$`\alpha `$ forest offers two advantages over galaxies as a way to access the linear matter power spectrum. First, the scale at which objects are going nonlinear is smaller at high redshift. And second, the Ly$`\alpha `$ forest is less biased, or at least we think we understand the bias better, than galaxies.

Some of us were much impressed with Croft’s technique, but at the same time skeptical that it could work so well. The correction from flux power spectrum to linear matter power is large and at least somewhat model-dependent, yet the error bars on the reconstructed matter power spectrum reported in  were tiny at the smallest measurable scales.

Nick Gnedin and I  decided to try to reproduce Croft et al.’s  result, and Figure 1 shows the result. We explored a wider range of cosmological parameters, and astrophysical parameters governing the relation between dark matter and transmitted flux. The error bars in Figure 1 on the linear matter power spectrum reconstructed from the Ly$`\alpha `$ forest include both statistical and ‘systematic’ errors, the systematic errors being the envelope of uncertainty from differently parametered models that fit the observed power spectrum of transmitted flux. Although our error bars are bigger than those of , we confirm that their procedure seems to work as advertised. Our conclusions in this regard are more optimistic than those of Zaldarriaga et al. .

For comparison, Figure 1 also shows the real space power spectrum of PSCz galaxies measured by , and the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM concordance model power spectrum of . The linear matter power spectrum reconstructed from the Ly$`\alpha `$ forest has been linearly evolved to the present time using the concordance model. The agreement between the power spectrum inferred from the Ly$`\alpha `$ forest and the concordance model is quite striking when you consider that the concordance model was obtained without the benefit of the Ly$`\alpha `$ data.

## 3 A BARYONIC UNIVERSE?

One of the hottest goals (e.g. ) of studies of large scale structure is to detect baryonic wiggles in the galaxy power spectrum In , the 2 degree Field team reported a tentative detection of baryonic wiggles. Our own analysis , which however is based only on the smaller published 100k data set , finds a similar bump, but does not rate it as a statistically significant detection of baryons.

Nevertheless the bump at $`k0.05h\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$ is interestingly large. Intriguingly, it lines up nicely with a similar bump in the PSCz power spectrum , as shown in Figure 2. The 2dF and PSCz power spectra in Figure 2 are decorrelated , meaning that the error bars are uncorrelated with each other, so it is legitimate to do chi-by-eye.

For fun, Figure 2 compares the 2dF and PSCz power spectra to a COBE-normalized, flat, adiabatic power spectrum containing a cosmological constant and baryons, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.86`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b=0.14`$, but no non-baryonic Dark Matter. A large baryonic component not only strengthens baryonic wiggles, but also steepens the power spectrum. To counteract this steepening, the model power spectrum in Figure 2 has a large blue tilt, with primordial spectral index $`n=2`$.

A comparably decent fit can be obtained without a cosmological constant, but only by dint of increasing the bias factor to the extreme value of $`b11`$. In other words, in a pure baryonic universe with no cosmological constant, Large Scale Structure fluctuations would predict CMB fluctuations 11 times larger than observed. This discrepancy is of course an ancient result, one of the original motivations for introducing the notion of non-baryonic Dark Matter.

Sadly the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-baryon model fails dismally compared with CMB observations: the model predicts a first acoustic peak 5 times larger than observed, and at harmonic number $`l310`$, way higher than the observed peak at $`l=210`$ .

## 4 REAL SPACE POWER

The PSCz power spectrum shown in Figure 1 is a real space power spectrum, not a redshift space power spectrum. That is, the effect of pairwise peculiar velocities has been eliminated, at both linear and nonlinear scales.

Quiz question for you: at nonlinear scales, which can you measure more accurately from a galaxy redshift survey, the (angle-averaged) redshift space power spectrum or the real space power spectrum?

The answer is obvious, right? The redshift space power spectrum must be more accurate, because the observations are in redshift space, and to get from redshift space to real space you have to deconvolve the redshift space power spectrum from the effects of pairwise peculiar velocities. Presumably that deconvolution is model-dependent, and liable to the kind of numerical instability that generally attends deconvolution.

Wrong.

Remarkably enough, at nonlinear scales the real space power spectrum can be measured more accurately than the redshift space power spectrum! Which is a wonderful thing, because it is the real space power spectrum that you really want111 Ok, so what you really want is a power spectrum free not only from redshift distortions, but also from bias. The thorny issue of bias goes beyond the scope of this commentary. . As an added bonus, the distribution of pairwise peculiar velocities (or rather its Fourier transform) emerges as a byproduct of the measurement (Fig. 2 of ).

The key point that allows this miracle to happen is that peculiar velocities displace galaxies only in the line-of-sight direction in redshift space. This has the consequence that Fourier modes transverse to the line of sight are completely unaffected by redshift distortions. The result is familiar to the executors of angular galaxy surveys, who know that the 3D power spectrum that they extract from an angular survey is a real space power spectrum, not a redshift space power spectrum.

It follows that the real space power spectrum $`P(k)`$ is equal to the redshift space power spectrum $`P^s(k_{},k_{})`$ in the transverse ($`k_{}=0`$) direction

$$P(k)=P^s(k_{}=k,k_{}=0).$$
(1)
Notice that it is the power spectrum, not the correlation function, for which the relation between real space and redshift space quantities is so simple, equation (1). If you want to see the mathematics in more detail, look at .

Figure 3, from , shows a contour plot of the redshift space power spectrum $`P^s(k_{},k_{})`$ of PSCz, as a function of wavenumbers $`k_{}`$ and $`k_{}`$ respectively transverse and parallel to the line-of-sight. According to equation 1, the real space power spectrum is equal to the redshift space power spectrum along the transverse axis in Figure 3.

A simple argument demonstrates how it can be that the real space power spectrum is more accurately measurable than the redshift space power spectrum. Take a close pair of galaxies, say $`30h^1\mathrm{kpc}`$ apart. Projected on the sky, the galaxies will appear $`30h^1\mathrm{kpc}`$ apart or less. But thanks to their relative peculiar velocities, the pair will appear typically $`3h^1\mathrm{Mpc}`$ apart in redshift space, a factor of 100 larger. You see that all that wonderful information about close pairs that is in present in the transverse power spectrum is horribly mixed into (100 times, for example) larger scales in the angle-averaged redshift space power spectrum.

## 5 CONCLUSIONS

Cosmologists now have a Standard Model, a flat $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model seasoned with baryons. At the DARK2002 conference several speakers reported how data from diverse sources are pointing at the same concordance model.

Figure 1 illustrates one example of this concordance, how the linear power spectrum inferred from the Ly$`\alpha `$ forest is in full agreement with the concordance model.

First results from the new generation of large redshift surveys are emerging. It is probably premature to claim a detection of baryonic wiggles, but there are tantalizing hints of such, Figure 2, and it should not be long before baryonic wiggles in the galaxy power spectrum become an observational reality.

This commentary concluded by bringing attention to the counter-intuitive fact that it is possible to measure the real space power spectrum of galaxies more accurately than the redshift space power spectrum. One hopes that those who analyse redshift surveys will begin to take advantage of this have-your-cake-and-eat-it truth.


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# References

The Pioneer’s acceleration anomaly and Hubble’s constant.

J.L. Rosales 111 Xerox Corp. The Document Company S.A.U. Ribera del Loira 16-18, E-28042 Madrid (Spain). E-mail: JoseLuis.Rosales@esp.xerox.com

> Abstract
>
> The reported anomalous acceleration acting on the Pioneers spacecrafts could be seen as a consequence of the existence of some local curvature in light geodesics when using the coordinate speed of light in an expanding space-time. We will show that, as a matter of fact, what has been detected in the experiments is just the cosmic expansion rate -the Hubble parameter $`H`$-, a feature of light signals. A relation for the reported annual term is obtained which depends on orbital parameters, leading to suggesting an analogy between the effect and Foucault’s experiment, light rays playing a similar rôle in the expanding space than Foucault’s Pendulum does while determining Earth’s rotation.

Pioneer effect. A careful analysis of orbital data from Pioneer 10/11 spacecrafts has been reported,, which indicates the existence of a very weak acceleration - approximately $`a_p8.510^8cm/s^2`$ \- apparently directed toward the Sun. The most conservative (or less adventurous) hypothesis is that these sorts of effects on the Pioneers’s tracking data do not entail new physics and that the detected misfit must be due to some sophisticated (technological) reason having to do with the spacecraft configuration. However, the analysis in- seems to have ruled out many (perhaps all) of such technical reasons and the authors even claim having taken into account the accepted values of the errors in the planetary ephemeris, Earth’s orientation, precession, and nutation.

Thus, in principle, a new effect seems to have unexpectedly entered the phenomenology of physics. On the other hand, if such an effect really exists (i.e., it can not be eliminated by data reanalysis) it would represent a violation of Birkhoff’s theorem in general relativity for no constant acceleration at all is predicted by the Schwarzschild solution. One of the surprising features of the effect, as already pointed out in , is that it does not affect the planets (since no cumulative precession is observed in their trajectories) but only to spacecrafts (an apparently, strong violation of the equivalence principle.)

Position determinations procedures for planets and spacecrafts, however, differ. In Pioneer’s experiment the procedure has to do with transmissions and receptions of light signals between an observer on Earth and the object whose coordinate position is to be determined, while for planets orbit perturbation theory is used to obtain cumulative result on the full trajectory. That is why Pioneer’s coordinate determination allows not only to analyze the Solar System gravitational field in which the probes are certainly immersed, but also the nature of the non static metric background of the expanding space-time on which this gravitational field is acting on light itself.

We will show in this essay that the nature of the effect lays on the measurable properties of light rays that propagates within the expanding space background and that what has been detected in the experiments is just the cosmic expansion rate -the Hubble parameter $`H`$-, a feature of light signals. The results have, then, nothing to do with the existence of dark matter or any other source of local gravitational field.

The full effect is more conveniently understood when we notice that it deals properly on three different effects:

* The determination of an anomalous acceleration acting on the orbit, $`a_p`$, apparently directed toward the Sun (although the authors of  admit that the data are not provided of enough resolution as to determine whether the acceleration is either toward the Sun or toward the observer on Earth.) Moreover, $`a_p`$ also has a small annual variation amplitude of the order of $`\delta a_pa_p\frac{1}{30}`$.
* The anomalous Doppler effect which obtains a frequency drift acceleration, $`a_t`$. This is related with $`a_p`$ upon assuming $`a_ta_p/c`$
* A new kind of clock acceleration, $`a_q`$, related but not directly correlated with the previous $`a_t`$, which can better be understood if there exists an expanding space-time. $`a_q`$ corresponds to the detection (see ) of the predicted effect in  that the observed time of travel for light signals in an expanding space has a shift of the kind

$$tt\frac{1}{2}a_qt^2\text{ ,}$$
(1)
where $`a_q=H`$ is Hubble’s constant.

We will now derive these three effects from the single assumption that there exist a expanding space background.

Let us start by considering a generic FRW metric

$$ds^2=c^2dt^2+\chi (t)^2dr^2\text{ ,}$$
(2)
taking our units of space and time at the cosmological time $`t_1`$, we can write,

$$\chi (t)(\frac{t}{t_1})^{1\delta }\text{ ,}$$
(3)
where $`\delta 1`$ is a constant depending on the density of the universe, and $`t_1`$ is the local ”cosmic time”.

Light geodesics satisfy

$$dlcdt=\chi dr\text{ ,}$$
(4)
where $`dl`$ is the length on the null cone.

On the other hand, we should be able to write our physical laws in such a way that the expansion of space time be scaled out. This requires using the radial function,

$$r_{}\chi r\text{ ,}$$
(5)
the metric then becoming

$$ds^2=(1\frac{r_{}^2H^2}{c^2})c^2dt^2+dr_{}^22r_{}Hdr_{}dt\text{ .}$$
(6)
where the local Hubble parameter is

$$H=\frac{d}{dt}\mathrm{log}(\chi )\text{ .}$$
(7)
Since these are not synchronous coordinates (for $`g_{0r_{}}0`$), we define the radial vector

$$\stackrel{}{g}=\frac{r_{}H/c}{1r_{}^2H^2/c^2}\stackrel{}{r}_1\text{ ,}$$
(8)
so that the space like element, as measured by some local observer, is the embedded three dimensional metric within the global space time in this manifold (see e.g. )

$$dl_{}^2\gamma _{r_{}r_{}}dr_{}^2=(g_{r_{}r_{}}g_{00}g^2)dr_{}^2=\frac{dr_{}^2}{1r_{}^2H^2/c^2}\text{ .}$$
(9)
Me may now compare the length, $`l_{}`$ as measured in the locally scaled coordinates, with that on the light cone. In order to do this, notice that one might also have obtained, after (4) and (5), the following equation for the null cone,

$$dl=dr_{}(l_{})r_{}(l_{})H\frac{dl}{c}\text{ ,}$$
(10)
whose solution - using (9), and noting that $`\dot{H}O(H^2)`$\- is

$$l=\frac{c}{H}\mathrm{log}\{1+\mathrm{sin}(\frac{Hl_{}}{c})\}l_{}\frac{Hc}{2}(\frac{l_{}}{c})^2+O(H^2)\text{ .}$$
(11)
Which is Equation (1) and represents the measure of the space time curvature on the local null cone.

On the light cone, an effective quadratic in time term to the light time must be added, thus mimicking a line of sight acceleration of the spacecraft. The constant value of the effective residual acceleration directed toward the center of coordinates is

$$\kappa =Hc\text{ .}$$
(12)
($`l=l_{}\frac{1}{2}\kappa (l_{}/c)^2`$.) This is the acceleration observed in Pioneer 10/11 spacecrafts. From the value reported in  we get a value for the Hubble parameter

$$H=\frac{\kappa }{c}83km/sMpc\text{ .}$$
(13)
The result depends on the non synchronous character of the used coordinates in Equation (6). Thus, the measured difference between the values of the universal time corresponding to two simultaneous events that take place in two different points of space may be computed as

$$\delta t=\frac{1}{c}_A^B\stackrel{}{g}𝑑\stackrel{}{r}\text{ .}$$
(14)
Which is path dependent.

This gives, for the spacecrafts,

$$\delta t=\frac{1}{c}_0^l_{}\stackrel{}{g}𝑑\stackrel{}{r}\frac{1}{2}H(l_{}/c)^2\text{ .}$$
(15)
The total measurable time for a light signal reaching Observer’s position is given approximately by

$$t_{}l_{}/c\frac{1}{2}H(l_{}/c)^2\text{ ,}$$
(16)
which could also be interpreted in terms of a measurable length given by

$$l=c_{}t_{}l_{}\frac{Hc}{2}(\frac{l_{}}{c})^2+O(H^2)\text{ ,}$$
(17)
which is just our previous result in Eq. (11).

Yet, the interpretation of our result in terms of the very existence of an asynchronism in the universal time coordinate (depending on the path) between points on the expanding manifold, also allows for understanding that closed trajectories could not be used to detect the expansion of the space time; for, if we try to synchronize clocks using a closed path, we obtain

$$\delta t=\frac{1}{c}\stackrel{}{g}𝑑\stackrel{}{r}=0\text{ .}$$
(18)
Which explains why Pioneer effect leads to no cumulative measurable effects on the orbits of the planets.

Now, let us obtain the relation between $`a_p`$ and $`a_t`$. For a monochromatic light ray of wave number $`k`$ and frequency $`\omega `$ in the metric (6), one easily obtains (see e.g.  222notice that we use different sign convention in (6) than in ref.  ),

$$k_r_{}=\frac{\omega }{c}\{\frac{\gamma _{r_{}r_{}}}{[g_{00}]^{1/2}}\frac{dr_{}}{dl_{}}+g_r_{}\}\text{ ,}$$
(19)
which reads as

$$\omega =ck(1+\frac{Hr_{}}{c})+O(H^2)\text{ .}$$
(20)
Correspondingly,

$$\dot{k}=\frac{\omega }{r_{}}=kH\text{ ,}$$
(21)
or

$$k=k_0(1Ht)+O(H^2)\text{ ,}$$
(22)
and,

$$\dot{r_{}}=\frac{\omega }{k}=c(1+\frac{Hr_{}}{c})\text{ ;}$$
(23)
finally, from Equations (20) and (22) at the observer’s position ($`r_{}=0`$), we obtain

$$\omega =\omega _0(1Ht)\text{ ,}$$
(24)
where $`\omega _0=k_0c`$. This corresponds to the measured $`a_t`$ (see ), i.e.,

$$H=a_t=2.810^{18}s^1\text{ .}$$
(25)
Moreover, from Equation (23), an observer might infer the presence of an effective Postnewtonian gravitational potential

$$\varphi _H=Hcr_{}\text{ ,}$$
(26)
where $`r_{}`$ is the coordinate position of the emitter with respect to that observer. This leads to an apparent vector acceleration that must be added to the orbital major forces

$$\stackrel{}{a}=\frac{}{\stackrel{}{r}_{}}\varphi _H=Hc\frac{\stackrel{}{r_{}}}{r_{}}\text{ .}$$
(27)
Let us now determine $`\stackrel{}{a}_p`$, i.e., that part of the acceleration directed toward the Sun. 333the remaining component has no effects since its averaged vector value is always zero in a year. Since $`\stackrel{}{r}_{}=\stackrel{}{R}_{}\stackrel{}{R}_E`$, where $`\stackrel{}{R}_E`$, and $`\stackrel{}{R}_{}`$, are Earth’s heliocentric coordinate vector and Pioneer’s, one obtains for large $`R_{}`$

$$\stackrel{}{a}_pHc(1+\zeta (t)\mathrm{cos}\gamma _0)\frac{\stackrel{}{R}_{}}{R_{}}\text{ ,}$$
(28)
$`\zeta (t)=(R_E/R_{})\mathrm{cos}(2\pi t/T)`$. Here $`t=nT`$, represents conjunctions and $`\gamma _0`$, is the spacecraft ecliptic latitude as measured from the Sun.

The periodic term pretty explains the observation of an additional Doppler drift, correlated with Earth’s orbital parameters ,

$$\delta a_pHc\zeta (t)\mathrm{cos}\gamma _0\text{ ,}$$
(29)
which has maxima on conjunctions as reported in  and . The corresponding total drift in one year period is

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\omega }{\omega }=2HT\frac{R_E}{R_{}}\mathrm{cos}\gamma _0\text{ ,}$$
(30)
for Pioneer 10 we can take $`<\frac{R_E}{R_{}}\mathrm{cos}\gamma _0>_{orbit}1/30`$ and the annual Doppler amplitude becomes

$$<\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\omega }{\omega }>_{orbit}510^{12}\text{ ,}$$
(31)
the value of the observed annual Doppler amplitude anomaly coincides with our estimates in Equation (31). Moreover, Equation (29) also explains the fact that at early times of the experiment, the annual term in the anomalous acceleration is largest (see Fig.17 in .)

Notice the remarkable character of our result in Equations (27) - (30). The Pioneer’s annual effect depends on the cosine of the ecliptic latitude $`\gamma _0`$, which demonstrates that the annual term is a pure geometrically driven effect. This statement could be seen as a benchmark for future experiments. It also suggest an heuristic analogy with Foucault’s experiment; there, the spin frequency depends on Pendulum’s colatitude $`\lambda `$ in a way entirely similar to Equation (30)- recall $`\omega _{Foucault}=\omega _{Earth}\mathrm{cos}\lambda `$.

We will finally illustrate the statement that the Pioneer effect is a property of light signals, i.e., there exist no additional gravitational field apart from the standard Newtonian one. In order to show this, let us introduce the following transformation in the coordinates of Equation (2) for $`\delta 0`$. It relates the Lorentzian metric with the Milne ($`\chi =Ht`$) space time:

$$dt=\frac{1}{(c^2\tau ^2\stackrel{~}{r}^2)^{1/2}}[c\tau d\tau \frac{\stackrel{~}{r}}{c}d\stackrel{~}{r}]\text{ ,}$$
(32)
$$dr=\frac{c^2}{H(c^2\tau ^2\stackrel{~}{r}^2)}[\tau d\stackrel{~}{r}\stackrel{~}{r}d\tau ]\text{ .}$$
(33)
Now, $`ds^2=0`$ leads to

$$\frac{d\stackrel{~}{r}}{d\tau }c\text{ ,}$$
(34)
i.e., $`\stackrel{~}{r}=c\tau +\stackrel{~}{r}_0`$ \- independently of the values of $`H`$. This means that the effect can be exactly removed in these coordinates. This satisfactory fact agrees with the consequences of Birkhoff’s theorem.

Acknowledgements. Thanks to the staff of Xerox Corporation (Spain). I also wish to thank to Dr.José Luis Sánchez-Gómez from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid for stimulating discussions.


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# Dynamics of the Destruction and Rebuilding of a Dipole Gap in Glasses

## Abstract

After a strong electric bias field was applied to a glass sample at temperatures in the millikelvin range its AC-dielectric constant increases and then decays logarithmically with time. For the polyester glass mylar we have observed the relaxation of the dielectric constant back to its initial value for several temperatures and histories of the bias field. Starting from the dipole gap theory we have developed a model suggesting that the change of the dielectric constant after transient application of a bias field is only partly due to relaxational processes. In addition, non-adiabatic driving of tunneling states (TSs) by applied electric fields causes long lasting changes in the dielectric constant. Moreover, our observations indicate that at temperatures below $`50`$ mK the relaxation of TSs is caused primarily by interactions between TSs.

At low temperatures the internal energy of glasses is vastly elevated by atomic tunneling states (TSs) and most properties of amorphous solids are strongly influenced by these additional degrees of freedom Zel71 ; Hun00 . The phenomenological ’tunneling model’ describes the thermal, elastic and dielectric properties of glasses at low temperatures successfully Phi72 ; And72 . Starting from the central assumption that the potential minima of groups of atoms are not well defined, it describes such a configuration by a ’particle’ moving in a double well potential. The two identical and harmonic wells may differ in depth by the asymmetry energy $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. At low temperatures only the energy ground states of the two wells are occupied and the TSs oscillate by quantum mechanical tunneling between them. The energy splitting of these two-level systems is given by $`E_0=\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }_0^2+\mathrm{\Delta }^2}`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ is the tunneling splitting. The parameters $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ are widely distributed due to the randomness of the glassy structure.

Soon after the introduction of the tunneling model in 1972 it was shown that the mutual interaction of TSs causes spectral diffusion, while interaction that involves energy exchange between TSs was long believed to be unimportant. However, more recent experiments revealed deviations from the tunneling model and indicate that for many properties the interaction between TSs gains importance with decreasing temperature Ens02 ; OshDip .

Here we will concentrate on the effects of electric bias fields on the low temperature AC-dielectric constant of amorphous materials. A sudden large change of the electric bias field causes the relative dielectric constant $`\delta ϵ/ϵ`$ of a glass sample, that was originally in thermal equilibrium, to immediately change to a larger value and then decay back to its initial value logarithmically for several decades in time. In addition, a relatively slow sweep of the bias field reveals a minimum of $`\delta ϵ/ϵ`$ at the initial bias field, in our case at zero field OshDip . A. Burin explained these findings within a ’dipole gap’ model, which considers the weak dipole-dipole interaction $`J_{\mathrm{ij}}=U_0/r_{\mathrm{ij}}^3`$ between TSs Bur95 . Although the interaction is weak, some TSs fulfill the condition $`J_{\mathrm{ij}}(E_{0\mathrm{i}}+E_{0\mathrm{j}})`$ for strongly coupled pairs. Within the dipole gap model, such strongly coupled TSs form clusters that do not contribute fully to the dielectric constant because their individual dipole moments are pinned relative to each other. A change of the bias field alters the distribution of asymmetry energies and leads to the formation of new clusters of strongly coupled TSs. As long as the new clusters remain out of thermal equilibrium, their TSs contribute fully to the dielectric constant Bur95 . This explains the observed minimum of $`\delta ϵ/ϵ`$ at the initial bias field. In addition mutual interaction of TSs leads to a new relaxation channel Bur94  due to resonant energy exchange between pairs of TSs resulting in the overall relaxation rate

$$\tau ^1=\gamma _0\mathrm{\Delta }_0^2E\mathrm{coth}\left(\frac{E}{2k_\mathrm{B}T}\right)+\alpha _0\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_0^2}{E^2}k_\mathrm{B}T,$$
(1)
consisting of the well known one-phonon relaxation rate (first term r.h.s.) and the contribution due to interaction. The material constants $`\gamma _0`$ Jac72  and $`\alpha _0`$ Bur94  depend on the coupling of the TSs to phonons and between each other respectively. Note that the dynamics of TSs that generate any change in the dielectric constant is dominated by thermally active TSs that fulfill $`E=\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }_0^2+(\mathrm{\Delta }+𝐩𝐅)^2}k_\mathrm{B}T`$ producing an additional temperature dependence in (1) implicit in the energy splittings $`E`$. Moreover, after changing the bias field F by more then $`𝐩\delta 𝐅k_\mathrm{B}T`$, where $`𝐩`$ is the dipole moment of the TSs, a different set of TSs fulfills $`Ek_\mathrm{B}T`$. Therefore in past experiments in which a large bias field was suddenly applied to study the dynamics of strongly coupled clusters the formation of a new dipole gap consisting of different clusters than those formed at zero field was observed. The interpretations of these measurements relied on assumptions such as a flat energy distribution of TSs for $`E_0𝐩𝐅\mathrm{\Phi }`$.

All our measurements were made at zero bias field. Thus we always measured the same set of TSs. However, we applied a large electric bias field $`\mathrm{\Phi }k_\mathrm{B}T`$ for the waiting time $`t_\mathrm{w}`$ to destroy the zero field dipole gap and then observed the restoration of the same dipole gap by measuring $`\delta ϵ/ϵ`$ in zero field. In addition, we took care to linearly sweep the bias field up and down in the same sweep time $`t_\mathrm{s}`$.

As long as the bias field is applied the TSs are relaxing towards a new equilibrium, thereby breaking clusters of TSs that were initially strongly coupled. Back at zero bias field these clusters rearrange. The TS’s relaxation times depend according to (1) on their asymmetry energies and are broadly distributed. For $`\mathrm{\Phi }k_\mathrm{B}T`$ initially thermal TSs with $`E_0k_\mathrm{B}T`$ have $`E\mathrm{\Phi }`$ at the bias field F. We introduce the decay time $`\tau _0`$ at which we expect the dielectric constant to again reach its initial value, i.e. $`ϵ(t)=ϵ(\mathrm{})`$ before the bias field was applied

$$\frac{\tau _0}{t_\mathrm{w}}=\frac{\tau (E=k_\mathrm{B}T)}{\tau (E=\mathrm{\Phi })}\left(\frac{k_\mathrm{B}T}{\mathrm{\Phi }}\right)^2\frac{(\gamma _0\mathrm{\Phi }^3+\alpha _0k_\mathrm{B}T)}{2.2\gamma _0(k_\mathrm{B}T)^3+\alpha _0k_\mathrm{B}T}.$$
(2)
For this we assumed that both the destruction and restoration of the dipole gap are solely caused by relaxational processes, thus that $`\tau _0`$ is given by the ratio of the relaxation times of TSs without and with field times the waiting time. Following the dipole gap theory we obtain for the change of the dielectric constant, after a bias field F was applied for a time $`t_\mathrm{w}`$,

$$\delta ϵ/ϵ\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}P_0\frac{2p^2}{3\epsilon _0\epsilon }\frac{P_0U_0}{2}\frac{2\pi }{3}\left[\mathrm{ln}\left\{\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }}{k_\mathrm{B}T}\right\}\right]^2\mathrm{ln}\left\{\frac{\tau _0}{t}\right\}.$$
(3)
Since in (3) relaxational processes are approximated by Heaviside step functions we expect deviations from logarithmic decays at the start and the end of the decay.

Our experiments were performed on $`15\mu `$m thick mylar film (amorphous polyester) at a frequency of 10 kHz at temperatures well below the minimum of $`\delta ϵ/ϵ`$ at $`T_{\mathrm{min}}(10\mathrm{k}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{z})50`$ mK, ensuring that $`\delta ϵ/ϵ`$ consists entirely of its resonant part. Gold capacitor electrodes were evaporated onto the sample. The dielectric constant was measured with a hand made bridge by comparison to a vacuum reference capacitor, that was placed on the one-kelvin pot of the dilution refrigerator. The AC-field was always kept within its linear response region.

Fig. 1 shows the evolution of $`\delta ϵ/ϵ`$ after a bias field of $`F=6.7`$ MV/m was applied for two different waiting times of several hours ($`t_\mathrm{w}t_\mathrm{s}=1`$ s) at each of the temperatures $`T=10`$ mK and $`T=20`$ mK. The zero point of time ($`t=0`$) is chosen to be at the completion of the bias field sweep and $`\delta ϵ/ϵ=0`$ is defined as its initial value at zero field. The amplitude of $`\delta ϵ/ϵ10^5`$ increases for longer waiting times and decreasing temperature as expected from (3). The dielectric constant decays approximately logarithmically over several decades in time justifying the simplification of describing relaxational processes by Heavyside Step Functions. Taking only the one-phonon process into account ($`\alpha _0=0`$) we would expect decay times of $`\tau _073t_\mathrm{w}`$ for $`T=10`$ mK and $`\tau _037t_\mathrm{w}`$ for $`T=20`$ mK according to (2). In contrast, our measurements suggest decay times in the order $`\tau _0t_\mathrm{w}`$ indicating the importance of interaction mediated relaxation footnote1 . Furthermore our experiments indicate that the restoration of the dipole gap takes longer for the higher temperature. According to (1) it is the interaction mediated relaxation process that results in an increasing relaxation time for the contributing TSs ($`E_0k_\mathrm{B}T`$) with increasing temperature. Therefore our data unambiguously show that interaction mediated relaxation dominates in this temperature range.

One of the solid lines in Fig. 1 is a linear fit for $`T=10`$ mK and $`t_\mathrm{w}=18000`$ s (filled circles). By comparison with (3) we find the fit-parameters $`\tau _0/t_\mathrm{w}1.02`$ and $`P_0U_04.110^4`$, the latter lying whithin typical estimations for other glassesBur95 . The prefactor in (3) was previously obtained from the temperature variation of $`\delta ϵ/ϵ`$ well below $`T_{\mathrm{min}}`$ as $`2P_0\frac{2p^2}{3\epsilon _0\epsilon }1.3510^4`$ OshDip ; footnote2  and the dipole moment of the TSs in mylar was estimated to be $`p1.2`$ Debye as discussed later (see fig. 4). Using (1) we estimate the temperature at which the interaction mediated relaxation time equals the one-phonon relaxation time as 55 mK $`T_\mathrm{c}95`$ mK for $`3\tau _0/t_\mathrm{w}1`$. Below $`T_\mathrm{c}`$ the interaction mediated relaxation dominates. The other three lines in fig. 1 are calculated from (3) using the same set of parameters. Our simplifying model agrees remarkably well with the data besides deviations from logarithmic decays particularly at the higher temperature.

In fig. 2 the restoration of the dipole

gap at the temperature of $`T=10`$ mK is displayed for 10 different waiting times between $`0.1`$ s and 5 hours and otherwise the same conditions as for the data in fig. 1. The straight lines in fig. 2 are calculated from (3) for the three longest waiting times using the same parameters as for the theory curves in fig. 1. Our model which considers relaxation predicts parallel decay curves shifted along the logarithmic time axis proportional to $`\mathrm{ln}(t_\mathrm{w})`$. In experiments we observe this behaviour only for our longest waiting times (fig. 1). As $`t_\mathrm{w}`$ gets shorter $`\delta ϵ/ϵ`$ increasingly decays slower than expected, until for $`t_\mathrm{w}t_\mathrm{s}`$ (our two shortest waiting times in fig. 2) the waiting time dependence disappears completely. To further investigate this puzzling effect we show in Fig. 3 the decay curves for 3 different sweep times at $`t_\mathrm{w}=30`$ s (solid points). As with longer $`t_\mathrm{w}`$, $`\delta ϵ/ϵ`$ increases for longer $`t_\mathrm{s}`$. For comparison we included the data points from Fig. 2 for $`t_\mathrm{s}=1`$ s and $`t_\mathrm{w}=100`$ s (open circles). Surprisingly their course is almost identical to the curve for $`t_\mathrm{s}=10`$ s and $`t_\mathrm{w}=30`$ s with a much smaller waiting time even if one were to make the obvious overestimation $`t_\mathrm{w}+2t_\mathrm{s}t_\mathrm{w}`$ to include relaxation while the bias field is being changed.

At this point we can safely conclude that at waiting times shorter than $`t_\mathrm{w}3000`$ s an additional process gains importance that is not relaxational (due to waiting time independence) and instead depends on the sweep rate of the bias field. We propose that the changing electric (AC and DC) field drives TSs non-adiabatically during the bias field sweep, and that this process is responsible for the new behavior.

Let us consider the time dependent quantum mechanics of the TSs while the bias field is being changed. If the field sweep is ’slow’ the TSs are driven adiabatically and their wave functions always adjust to the momentary field. In the opposite case of a ’fast’ sweep the TSs are driven non-adiabatically and their wave functions stay unchanged. These TSs remain in their original quantum states. Most TSs are asymmetric and therefore localized. In the following we consider non-adiabatically driven TSs having asymmetry energies that decrease to zero and successively increase again with changing field. For these TSs the original ground (excited) state at zero field converts into the excited (ground) state at maximum field. As the result the occupation numbers of these TSs are inverted. However, as the field is changed back to zero the non-adiabatically driven TSs are in their original state having been inverted twice. The Landau-Zenner criterion LanZen  gives the probability

$$R_1(\mathrm{\Delta }_0)=e^{\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_0}{\mathrm{\Delta }_{0\mathrm{c}}}\right)^2}\mathrm{with}\mathrm{\Delta }_{0\mathrm{c}}=\pi \sqrt{\mathrm{\Phi }h/t_\mathrm{s}}$$
(4)
with Plank’s constant $`h`$ that a system is driven non-adiabatically near $`\mathrm{\Delta }+\mathrm{\Phi }=0`$. Only TSs with $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0\mathrm{\Delta }_{0\mathrm{c}}`$ have a finite probability to have been inverted exactly once footnote3 . The non-adiabatically driven TSs have very long relaxation times $`\tau (\mathrm{\Delta }_{0\mathrm{c}},E_0)`$ which are according to (1) and (4) proportional to $`\tau t_\mathrm{s}/\mathrm{\Phi }`$. Neglecting the relaxational process leading to (2) we expect the decay time at which the dielectric constant reaches its initial value to be a function of $`t_\mathrm{s}/\mathrm{\Phi }`$ as well. However, the predicted decay would be non-logarithmic resembling a smoothened step occuring at the time $`t\tau (\mathrm{\Delta }_{0\mathrm{c}},E_0=k_\mathrm{B}T)`$.

An AC measuring field forces the dipole moment of a TS to oscillate with the measuring frequency $`\omega `$ as long as the quantum mechanical time evolution of the TS is able to follow the field. However, this description fails when the energy splitting $`E`$ of a TS is smaller than a critical value $`E_{\mathrm{AC}}=\sqrt{\mathrm{}\omega 𝐩𝐅_{\mathrm{AC}}}`$ below which the AC-measuring field $`F_{\mathrm{AC}}`$ drives the system non-adiabatically. TSs with $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0<E_{\mathrm{AC}}`$ are driven nonadiabatically by the AC field for the time $`\delta t^{}=t_\mathrm{s}F_{\mathrm{AC}}/F_{\mathrm{DC}}`$ in which $`E<E_{\mathrm{AC}}`$. An initially localised TS will oscillate between the two wells during $`\delta t^{}`$ with a renormalized tunneling frequency $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_0/h`$ Grossmann91 . Accordingly, TSs with $`h\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_0^1>\delta t^{}`$ stay localised in the original state whereas TSs with $`h\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_0^1\delta t^{}`$ oscillate many times so that only half of them end up in their initial state. The AC-driving effect predicts a logarithmic decay with the decay time $`\tau _0\tau _0(\delta t^{}t_\mathrm{s}/\mathrm{\Phi })`$ footnote4 .

A combination of DC- and AC-driving explains the sweep time dependence visible in fig. 2 and 3 qualitatively. In our experiments $`F_{\mathrm{AC}}9.7`$ kV/m, resulting in $`E_{\mathrm{AC}}\mathrm{\Delta }_{0\mathrm{c}}`$ for $`F_{\mathrm{DC}}6.7`$ MV/m and $`t_\mathrm{s}=1`$ s. At longer $`t_\mathrm{s}`$ we expect AC-driving to increasingly become important at the expense of the DC-driving effect. The data in fig. 3 indicate a crossover from non-logarithmic to logarithmic behavior at $`t_\mathrm{s}10`$ s. Consistently we did not observe a dependence on $`F_{\mathrm{AC}}`$ for $`t_\mathrm{s}10`$ s (unpublished data) but have not searched for that effect for $`t_\mathrm{s}>10`$ s.

Our model including non-adiabatic driving predicts $`\tau _0\tau _0(t_\mathrm{s}/\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{DC}})`$. In fig. 4 we plot two data sets with the same $`\mathrm{\Phi }/t_\mathrm{s}=19k_\mathrm{B}`$mK/s but different sweep times and bias fields. The decay times of both data curves are the same as expected. We stress that relaxational processes during $`t_\mathrm{w}`$ cause a decay time $`\tau _0t_\mathrm{w}`$ (fig. 1), but in fig. 4 $`\tau _0t_\mathrm{w}`$ and thus the decay is due to the driving effect. In our model this can be understood by recognizing that the finite waiting time necessarily implies a smallest $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ for TSs that can possibly decay while the bias field is applied. This smallest $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ is larger than $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{0\mathrm{c}}`$ unless $`t_\mathrm{w}t_\mathrm{s}`$. Regardless of which effect breaks the strongly coupled clusters of TSs, we always find the temperature dependence of the decay of the dielectric constant propotional to $`[\mathrm{ln}(\mathrm{\Phi }/k_\mathrm{B}T)]^2`$. This is a consequence of the central assumption in the dipole gap model that only TSs with energy splitting $`TE_0\mathrm{\Phi }`$ contribute to changes in the dielectric constant Bur94 . Using this dependence we normalized the two data sets as shown in the inset in fig. 4. Very good agreement was reached with the dipole moment $`p1.2`$ Debye (that was used for the theory curves in fig. 1 and 2).

We have investigated the dynamics of the destruction and the restoration of the zero field dipole gap by application of strong electric bias fields. Only our data curves at very long waiting times $`t_\mathrm{w}t_\mathrm{s}`$ can be explained by solely relaxational processes. Our investigation suggests non-adiabatic driving of the TSs as a possible reason for the destruction of the dipole gap for shorter $`t_\mathrm{w}`$. Furthermore we have shown that at temperatures below $`50`$ mK the relaxation of TSs is dominately by a relaxation mechanism due to interactions between TSs Bur94 .

This work was supported by U.S. Dept. of Energy grant DE-FG03-90ER45435-M012. S. Ludwig thanks the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and P. Nalbach the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for support.


text:
# Fractal geometry of critical Potts clusters

## I Introduction

$`q`$-state Potts models have played an important role in condensed matter physicsWu82 . Here we study geometrical aspects of the critical Potts clusters, in two dimensions. The $`q`$-state Potts model Pot52  is defined through the Hamiltonian

$$=K\underset{i,j}{}(\delta _{\sigma _i,\sigma _j}1),$$
(1)
where $`i,j`$ denotes the summation over nearest neighbor sites $`i,j`$, the spin variable $`\sigma _i`$ can take any of the values $`1,2,\mathrm{},q`$ and $`K`$ is the thermal coupling with the factor $`1/k_\mathrm{B}T`$ absorbed in it. It is possible to extend $`q`$ to real values Wu82 , but here we concentrate on the Potts model with integer values of $`q`$. In particular, we study Potts models with $`q=1,2,3,\mathrm{and}4`$, where the thermal phase transition at the critical inverse temperature $`K_c=\mathrm{ln}(1+\sqrt{q})`$ Wu82  is of second order. Below we present simulations at $`K=K_c`$.

One defines the fractal clusters in the Potts model through the Fortuin-Kasteleyn (FK) For72  cluster decomposition, which states that the model can be mapped onto a general percolation model. The partition function of the Potts model $`𝒵=\mathrm{Tr}_\sigma e^{}`$ can be expressed in terms of bond variables as $`𝒵=\mathrm{Tr}_{\mathrm{bonds}}p^b(1p)^nq^{N_c}`$, where $`b`$ is the number of bonds and $`n`$ is the number of interactions that did not form a bond in a configuration with $`N_c`$ clusters Swe87 . Here, $`p=1e^K`$, and $`\mathrm{Tr}_{\mathrm{bonds}}`$ means a summation over bonds. Thus, the problem of a thermal lattice model can be mapped to a graph problem. The FK decomposition has been the starting point for efficient cluster algorithms Swe87 ; Wol89  for simulation of spin models.

The Potts model has been shown to exhibit a rich critical behavior, and it has been related to a number of problems in lattice statistics Wu82 . Although of great theoretical interest in itself, it also has many experimental realizations. The $`1`$-state Potts model is equivalent to a bond percolation problem Wu82 , and the $`2`$-state Potts model is the same as the Ising model Ising . The $`q=3`$ Potts model has been shown to describe absorbed monolayers on two-dimensional (2D) lattices Ale75 ; Bre77 . Domany et al. Dom77  suggested that $`N_2`$ absorbed on krypton-plated graphite should exhibit the same critical behavior as the $`q=4`$ Potts model. More references of the experimental realizations can be found in the review article by Wu Wu82 .

Here we study geometrical aspects of the critical Potts clusters in two dimensions. This is in direct analogy with the geometry of percolation clusters, which has been widely studied Sta95 ; Sal87 ; Aiz99 ; Gro86 . Specifically, we measure the fractal dimensions $`D_M,D_H,D_{EP},D_{SC},\mathrm{and}D_G`$ describing the scaling of the cluster’s mass, hull, external accessible perimeter Gro86 , singly connected bonds Con82  and the gates to narrow-gate fjords Aiz99 , respectively, with its radius of gyration $`R`$. As emphasized by Coniglio Con89 , many of these fractal dimensions have been derived analytically Sal87 . Some others have been found more recently Aiz99 ; Dup00 . Although there exists much numerical work on the percolation clusters (i.e. $`q=1`$), we are not aware of any detailed numerical study of most of the above mentioned quantities for $`q>1`$, and especially when $`q`$ approaches the critical value $`q_c=4`$.

Section II describes the numerical methods used in the simulation of the Potts models. Our numerical simulations show that the asymptotic power law dependence of the various masses on $`R`$ is approached relatively slowly, and therefore the analysis of the data must include correction terms, particularly as $`q`$ approaches $`q_c`$. The theory developed to obtain these correction terms Aha02  is briefly summarized in Section III. We compare our numerical data with the exact predictions in Section IV. Finally, we present the summary and conclusions in Section V.

## II Simulation

Numerical simulations of spin models have developed from the local spin flip type algorithm Met53  to the more advanced cluster algorithms Swe87 ; Wol89 . Our simulations were done on a 2D square lattice with both open and periodic boundary conditions. Clusters of the $`q`$-state Potts model were generated using the Swendsen-Wang algorithm Swe87 , which is based on the cluster decomposition by Fortuin and Kasteleyn For72 . The size of the system in our simulations was $`4096^2`$ spins for all $`q`$. Figure 1 shows sample clusters for different values of $`q`$.

All simulations were started with a homogeneous initial condition, with all spins initially parallel to each other. First we thermalized the system to allow the model to equilibrate. Thermalization was checked by measuring both the energy per spin $`e`$, directly from the Potts Hamiltonian, and the magnetization per spin $`m`$, using the representation of Potts spins in a $`q1`$ dimensional space Wu82 .

Thermalization of large spin systems takes a very long time. The quantities of interest in this work show a relatively slow approach to the asymptotic values. Thus, extremely large lattices are required for the analysis of the scaling behavior of the cluster subset masses. When performing simulations on lattices of linear size $`L=2^{12}=4096`$, about $`20000`$ Monte Carlo steps (lattice sweeps) are needed to equilibrate the system.

We devised a simple method to overcome the problem with long thermalization times. We started the thermalization with a small lattice of size $`L_1`$ and thermalized it. We then periodically copied the spin configuration of the small lattice to a lattice with twice as large a size, $`L_2=2\times L_1`$, and thermalized it. We continued this process until the desired system size was reached. In practice, it is recommended to compare the values of $`e`$ and $`m`$ obtained this way with the values obtained from conventional thermalization to be sure that the system is really thermalized. Alternatively, one can continue running the simulation and collect the values of thermodynamical variables as a function of time and check that there is no increasing or decreasing trend in them. The thermalization method described above allows a speed-up by an order of magnitude in thermalization for a Potts spin system of $`1024^2`$ spins.

After the spin system was thermalized, we took samples of the cluster configurations after every $`20`$ spin updates (corresponding roughly to the correlation time for the present system sizes) to get uncorrelated samples. Each cluster of the present configuration was taken separately under investigation. However, as a precaution to avoid some of the finite size effects, we collected the data only from those clusters which did not involve spins on the boundary. For the remaining clusters we determined the masses of the cluster subsets. The total mass of the cluster is defined as the number of occupied bonds in the cluster. The number of bonds belonging to the hull, external perimeter and the number of singly connected bonds were counted using directed walkers that walk on the appropriate cluster perimeter Sta95 ; Gro86 .

To measure the number of gates to fjords of different gate sizes ($`S_G`$) a walk was initiated on the EP. The walker starts from the left vacant neighbor of the lower-left site belonging to the cluster and goes around the cluster on the EP always trying to turn to the right. At each site, we look at the neighbors on the left hand side and check whether the sites within a predefined distance $`S_G`$ belong to the EP or not. If the sites (and bonds) up to the distance $`S_G`$ are not EP sites and the site at the distance $`S_G`$ belongs to the EP, the walker is about to enter a fjord with a gate size $`S_G`$. All fjords with different gate sizes were counted during a single walk around the cluster with an array of boolean variables that indicate whether the walker is within a fjord of given size. If the walker was in a fjord of a gate size $`S_G`$, fjords with gate size $`S_G^{}>S_G`$ were not allowed in the statistics. In practice, all measured values of $`S_G`$ gave similar results, and we report only the results for $`S_G=1`$.

As noted by Aizenman et alAiz99 , the scaling concerns fjords whose size $`L_F`$ is comparable to that of the cluster, $`R`$, and whose gate’s width is much smaller than $`L_F`$. The reason for this is easy to understand, since small kinks and pits are a natural part of the fractal cluster’s perimeter. Thus, only large enough fjords were included in the statistics. This was taken into account by choosing a suitable parameter $`s`$, and counting only fjords with $`L_F>sR`$.

Since any thermalized spin configuration contains clusters of many sizes, we collected the data in multiplicatively increasing bins of the size of the cluster. Each bin contained the clusters of sizes within $`[R_i,R_{i+1}=\sqrt{2}R_i]`$.

## III Corrections to scaling

In our recent publication Aha02 , we derived theoretically the corrections-to-scaling terms for the various cluster subset masses. The corrections arise from three different sources: (a) using the renormalization group approach, (b) mapping to the coulomb gas, and (c) considering the uncertainty of the correct measure for the linear cluster size, which implies corrections of the order of $`1/R`$.

The first correction relates to the dilution field $`\psi `$, which is generated under renormalization even when one starts with the non-diluted case Car80 . Solving the renormalization group recursion relations (RGRR’s) for $`\psi (\mathrm{})`$, where $`\mathrm{}`$ is the scale variable, substituting the solution to the RGRR’s for the field $`h_S`$ conjungate to the density $`\rho _S=M_S/R^d`$ and finally calculating the scaling of the density $`\rho _S(\mathrm{})`$ with the cluster’s linear size $`R=e^{\mathrm{}}`$ yields the following predictions for the approach of each mass $`M_S`$ to the asymptotics. Here, $`S=M,H,EP,SC`$ or $`G`$.

In the $`q=4`$ case, the renormalization group calculation is exact, yielding logarithmic corrections to the scaling of $`M_S(R)`$:

$`M_S`$ $``$ $`R^{D_S}(\mathrm{log}R+B\mathrm{log}(\mathrm{log}R)+E)^{c_S/a}`$ (2)
$`\times (1+𝒪(\mathrm{log}\mathrm{log}R/\mathrm{log}R)),`$
with $`D_S=y_S(q=4)`$ and $`c_S/a`$ as given in Table 1 (see below) . Note that $`B`$ is universal, and the non-universal constant $`E`$ is the same for all $`S`$. Equation (2) generalizes the logarithmic corrections of Cardy et alCar80 .

We were recently directed to a previous study by Vanderzande and Marko Van93 , in which they considered corrections to scaling for percolative properties of the $`q=4`$ Potts model. They also found logarithmic corrections to scaling in aggreement with those presented here.

For $`q<4`$, to leading order in $`ϵ^{}=\sqrt{4q}`$, the same procedure yields

$$M_SR^{D_S}(1\widehat{B}R^\theta )^{c_S/a}R^{D_S}(1+f_SR^\theta ),$$
(3)
where $`D_Sy_Sc_Sϵ^{}`$ and $`\theta 2aϵ^{}`$. Note that to the lowest order in $`ϵ^{}`$, the ratios $`f_S/f_S^{}`$ are universal, being equal to $`c_S/c_S^{}`$. This is similar to analogous ratios for thermodynamic properties in the usual $`ϵ`$-expansion Aha80 . This universality should hold to all orders in $`ϵ^{}`$. Expanding the exact $`D_S`$ (Table 1) in $`ϵ^{}`$ yields $`c_S`$. Using also $`a=1/\pi `$ Car80 ; Aha02  yields our predictions for $`c_S/a`$ (given in Table 1), to be used in the fitting procedure.

The second source of corrections involves new contributions to the relevant pair correlation functions in the Coulomb gas representations. den Nijs Nij83  derived such corrections to the order parameter correlation function. Since correlation exponents $`x`$ are related to the fractal dimension via $`D=dx`$, the correction exponents can be related to the corresponding correction terms for the scaling of the mass $`M_M`$, yielding the leading correction

$$\theta ^{}=4/g,$$
(4)
where $`g`$ is the ($`q`$-dependent) Coulomb Gas coupling constant (see Table 1).

Using a similar approach we found in the case of the hull and the singly connected bonds that the leading correction exponent is given by

$$\theta ^{\prime \prime }=2/g.$$
(5)
We argued that this correction would also hold for the external perimeter Aha02 .

The last source of corrections involves ‘analytic’ terms, coming e. g. from linear cuts with dimensions $`(D_S1)`$, partD  or from replacing $`R`$ by $`(R+A)`$, since there are many possible candidates for the correct linear measure of the cluster. These would imply corrections of relative size $`1/R`$.

## IV Results

We now present the numerical data from large scale Monte Carlo simulations of the Potts models. Our aim is to confirm the exact predictions of the fractal dimensions $`D_S`$ in the cases where they are available and to give numerical estimates for the exponents that have not yet been calculated exactly. In addition, we want to numerically confirm the corrections-to-scaling theory presented in the previous section.

We obtain good agreement with the theoretically predicted values for most of the fractal dimensions $`D_S`$. The worst agreement is found for the exponent of the external perimeter $`D_{EP}`$ for $`q>2`$ Potts models. The reasons for this will be discussed below. However, fixing the correction terms and performing fits only to the amplitudes and to the fractal dimensions $`D_S`$ in the logarithmic derivatives of Eqs. (2) and (3), yielded estimates for the subset fractal dimensions that agree to the precision of $`0.05`$ or better with the theoretical predictions of Table 1.

We are not able to give a quantitative numerical proof of the values predicted for the correction terms. Qualitatively, our numerically evaluated functions $`M_S(R)`$ display a complex corrections-to-scaling behavior that requires more than one correction term. The theoretical predictions can be fitted reasonably well to the data keeping the important quantities such as $`\theta `$, $`\theta ^{}`$ (or $`\theta ^{\prime \prime }`$) and $`c_S/a`$ fixed while leaving the amplitudes of individual correction terms free.

We start this section by studying the fractal geometry of clusters in the site percolation model, which is computationally easier to simulate. The reasons behind the difficulties in the comparison of the numerical data with the analytical predictions are discussed. We then proceed to present our numerical data on the Potts clusters. In all the figures of this Section, whenever the error bars are not shown they are smaller than the size of the symbols.

### IV.1 Site Percolation Clusters

For $`q=1`$ we simulated site percolation on a square lattice of size $`24576^2`$, using the Newman-Ziff cluster labeling ZN\_Alg  which is an improved version of the Hoshen-Kopelman algorithm Hos76 . Thus the linear lattice size was $`6`$ times larger than in the simulation of Potts clusters with $`q>1`$.

To get a feeling of what kind of problems are present in the fitting procedure when the theoretically predicted correction terms of Eqs. (3) and (2) are fitted to the numerical data on the cluster subset masses $`M_S(R)`$, let us consider as an example the scaling of the number of singly connected bonds. Figure 2 illustrates the scaling of $`M_{SC}(R)`$ with the cluster size $`R`$ on a double logarithmic scale. The solid line in the main figure indicates the predicted slope. The fit to the data yields an estimate for the asymptotic fractal dimension $`D_S`$ which is less than $`0.01`$ off the exactly known value $`D_{SC}=3/4`$.

Although the asymptotic scaling regime $`M_{SC}(R)R^{D_{SC}}`$ can be seen here, there are difficulties in the extraction of the correction terms of Eq. (3). The smallest value of $`R`$ included in the linear fit to the data on $`\mathrm{log}\mathrm{log}`$ scale in Fig. 2 corresponds to the regime where the influence of the correction terms are about to vanish, thus justifying fitting without any correction terms. The saturation to the asymptotics can be seen more clearly in the inset of Fig. 2 where data are scaled with the predicted asymptotic behavior $`M_{SC}(R)/R^{D_{SC}}`$. The inset shows that at about $`R300`$ the correction terms can be neglected in this case. However, at the same point the statistics becomes so noisy, making a precise estimation of the correction terms difficult. An additional difficulty arises from the fact that the finite size of the lattice is not taken into account in any way in the finite size scaling form of Eq. (3). Due to the finite system sizes, statistics of the large cluster is biased in such a way that only the compact clusters fit in the lattice without touching the boundaries. The extended clusters having for example more EP sites than compact clusters with the same radius of gyration $`R`$, are absent. This bias cannot be taken into account by any known correction terms. We tried to extrapolate the data from different system sizes to obtain an asymptotic curve for an infinitely large system, but the statistics is far from sufficient for such a procedure.

### IV.2 Potts Clusters

In the case of Potts clusters, system sizes that can be used in the simulations are much smaller than those in the site percolation case, since in addition to the spin variables, also bonds must be stored in the computer memory. This causes the finite size effects to be even more pronounced than those present in the site percolation model simulations. In addition, the correction exponents in the $`1<q<4`$ Potts models are smaller than those in the $`q=1`$ case. Also, the logarithmic corrections present in the $`4`$-state Potts model are weaker than any of the power law corrections in $`q<4`$ models. Thus, the influence of the corrections-to-scaling terms extends to much larger values of $`R`$.

The data analysis was done by fitting the theoretical predictions of Sect. III to the data. The nonlinear fitting was done using the Levenberg-Marquardt method NR . The measure for the quality of fits is $`\chi ^2`$. Values of $`\chi ^2`$ close to one indicate a good fit. We determined the error bars of the fractal dimensions by fixing $`D_S`$ to a range of values around the theoretically predicted one, and performing a fit to the amplitudes for each such value. The error bar on $`D_S`$ was fixed as the range within which $`\chi ^2`$ remained smaller than $`2`$. One can perform the fit directly to $`M_S(R)`$, or to the effective fractal dimensions $`D_S^{\mathrm{eff}}(R)`$ (which is the logarithmic derivative of $`M_S(R)`$ Sta95 ).

We found that for $`q<4`$, fitting directly to the mass worked out better. If one wants to fit to the measured data directly, it is recommended to divide the measured data on the cluster subset masses by the exactly known asymptotic behavior to avoid problems with numerical accuracy. Thus, for $`q<4`$, the fits are done to the form

$$M_S/R^{D_S}=E_S(1+f_SR^\theta +f_S^{}R^\theta ^{}+g_S/R),$$
(6)
where $`E_S,f_S,f_S^{},g_S,\theta `$ and $`\theta ^{}`$ are the fitting parameters, and the fractal dimensions $`D_S`$ are kept fixed.

In the $`q=4`$ case, on the other hand, we found the fitting to the effective exponent $`D_S^{\mathrm{eff}}`$ better, and the fits were thus done to

$`D_S^{\mathrm{eff}}`$ $`=`$ $`d\mathrm{log}M_S/d\mathrm{log}R`$ (7)
$``$ $`D_S{\displaystyle \frac{(c_S/a)(B+C+\mathrm{log}R)}{(C+\mathrm{log}R)(E+\mathrm{log}R+B\mathrm{log}(C+\mathrm{log}R))}}`$
$`+Z/\mathrm{log}R.`$
Note that we have replaced the $`\mathrm{log}\mathrm{log}R`$ term in Eq. (2) by the more general $`\mathrm{log}(C+\mathrm{log}R)`$. Also, the logarithmic derivative of the higher order term on the RHS of Eq. (2) was approximated by a simpler form $`1/\mathrm{log}R`$. In the fitting procedure, the possibility of having many candidates for the correct linear measure of the cluster size was taken into account by allowing $`R`$ to adjust to $`R+A`$ (see Sect. III).

Below, the results of our numerics are summarized for the various subsets. We do not go into the details of numerical estimates for the various amplitudes in the nonlinear fits, since due to the relatively small range of the data and many fitting parameters the estimated error bars are large, and allow no comparison with, for example, the predicted amplitude ratios. Also, precise estimation of the correction exponents $`\theta `$, $`\theta ^{}`$ (or $`\theta ^{\prime \prime }`$) as well as the parameters $`c_S/a`$ is impossible with the presently available range of data. Instead, we keep the correction exponents (or parameters) fixed and try to extrapolate the fractal dimensions $`D_S`$, and to demonstrate that the predicted forms of scaling in Eqs. (7) and (6) are consistent with our numerical data. Specifically, in all the fits for $`1q<4`$, $`\theta `$ and $`\theta ^{}`$ (or $`\theta ^{\prime \prime }`$) of Eq. (6) were kept fixed (at the predicted values), while the amplitudes of each correction term were allowed to adjust. In the $`q=4`$ case, only $`c_S/a`$ was fixed in Eq. (7).

The logarithmic corrections are most important for the singly connected bonds at $`q=4`$, where theory predicts that $`D_{SC}=0`$ (see Table 1). Indeed, the solid line in Fig. 3 shows that a fit to Eq. (7) is consistent with this theoretical prediction. In contrast, a fit with a single power law correction term $`\theta =1/2`$ (dashed line in Fig. 3) extrapolates to a wrong value near $`D_{SC}=0.21`$!

#### IV.2.1 Mass

Fig. 4 shows an example of the fit to the curve $`M_M(q=3)/R^{D_M}`$. In the fitting procedure, $`D_M`$, $`\theta `$ and $`\theta ^{}`$ were kept fixed while $`E_M,f_M,f_M^{}`$ and $`g_M`$ were allowed to fit. The value $`\chi ^2=1.17`$ indicates that Eq. (6) gives a good representation of the data. Our numerical estimates for the fractal dimensions $`D_M(q)`$, determined as the range of values for which one has $`\chi ^2<2`$, are $`1.90\pm 0.01`$, $`1.87\pm 0.01`$, $`1.85\pm 0.02`$ and $`2.05\pm 0.15`$ for $`q=1,2,3,4`$, respectively. These are in good agreement with the theoretical predictions.

#### IV.2.2 Hull

Figure 5 shows a fit to the number of the bonds belonging to the hull in the $`q=4`$ Potts model. In this particular fit, $`D_H`$ and $`c_H/a`$ were kept fixed while $`B,C,Z`$ and $`A`$ were free to adjust. The value of $`\chi ^2=1.11`$ indicates that Eq. (7) fits the data well. Our numerical estimates for the fractal dimensions $`D_H(q)`$ are $`1.75\pm 0.01`$, $`1.66\pm 0.01`$, $`1.59\pm 0.03`$ and $`1.50\pm 0.01`$, for $`q=1,2,3,4`$, respectively. Agreement with the theoretical predictions is excellent as can be seen by comparison with the values in Table 1.

#### IV.2.3 External Perimeter

Figure 6 shows an example of the fit to the external perimeter data in the $`q=2`$ Potts model. The fractal dimension $`D_{EP}`$ and the correction exponents $`\theta `$ and $`\theta ^{\prime \prime }`$ were kept fixed at the predicted values while $`E_{EP},f_{EP},f_{EP}^{}`$ and $`g_{EP}`$ were free to adjust yielding $`\chi ^2=1.77`$, implying a reasonably good agreement with Eq. (6). Again, in the fits for $`q<4`$, $`\theta `$ and $`\theta ^{\prime \prime }`$ of Eq. (6) were kept fixed and in the $`q=4`$ case, $`c_{EP}/a`$ was fixed. The numerical estimates $`1.33\pm 0.05`$, $`1.36\pm 0.02`$, $`1.40\pm 0.02`$ and $`1.48\pm 0.02`$ for $`q=1,2,3,4`$, respectively, agree with the exact predictions.

#### IV.2.4 Singly connected bonds

In Fig. 7, we show the number of singly connected bonds $`M_{SC}(R)/R^{D_{SC}}`$ against the cluster size $`R`$ in the $`q=2`$ Potts model. The fractal dimension $`D_{SC}`$ and the correction exponents $`\theta `$ and $`\theta ^{\prime \prime }`$ were kept fixed to the predicted values while $`E_{SC},f_{SC},f_{SC}^{}`$ and $`g_{SC}`$ were allowed to fit. The value $`\chi ^2=1.21`$ implies good agreement with Eq. (6). The numerical estimates for the fractal dimensions are $`0.75\pm 0.02`$, $`0.55\pm 0.03`$, $`0.35\pm 0.07`$, for $`q=1,2,3,4`$, respectively. All the estimates for the fractal dimensions $`D_{SC}`$ are in good agreement with the theoretical predictions. However, the large value of $`\chi ^23`$ in the $`q=4`$ case indicates some discrepancy between Eq. (7) and the data.

#### IV.2.5 Gates to Fjords

Figure 8 shows our numerical data for the number of gates to narrow-gate fjords. The figure shows fits to the data along with the estimates for the fractal dimensions $`D_G`$. Our estimate $`D_G(q=1)=0.9\pm .05`$ agrees with the exact prediction $`D_G=11/120.92`$ Aiz99 . Here, only a linear fit to the data on the double logarithmic scale was considered, since the scaling regime for the presently available cluster sizes is rather narrow. The parameter $`s`$ governing the minimal ratio of the fjord size to the cluster size that we used was in the range $`0.1s0.2`$. The actual choice for the value of $`s`$ does not affect the scaling law, but it merely determines the range where the power law behavior $`M_GR^{D_G}`$ starts (decreasing $`s`$ shifts the maximum of the curves $`M_G(R)`$ to the left). Our numerical estimates for $`|D_G(q)|`$ decrease with increasing $`q`$. Our estimates for $`D_G(q)`$ are $`0.90\pm 0.05`$, $`0.71\pm 0.05`$, $`0.63\pm 0.05`$ and $`0.59\pm 0.05`$ for $`q=1,2,3,4`$, respectively. Our numerical estimates together with the theoretical predictions for all fractal dimensions $`D_S`$ are summarized in Table 2.

## V Conclusions

The present paper examined the fractal geometry of the Potts clusters at the critical temperature. The aim was to find numerical evidence on the exactly derived subset fractal dimensions $`D_S`$ Sal87 ; Con89 ; Aiz99 ; Dup00  and to give estimates on the dimensions for which there is no exact prediction. We gave the first numerical estimate of the negative fractal dimensions $`D_G`$, describing the scaling of the gates to fjords Aiz99 .

Analysis of our numerical data revealed a slow and complex approach to the asymptotic behavior. If this is neglected in data analysis, wrong numerical estimates for the dimensions $`D_S`$ follow. Using the corrections-to-scaling terms derived in our earlier publication Aha02  in the fitting procedure, excellent agreement with most of the exact dimensions and data was found. The present quality and range of data does not allow a unique quantitative confirmation of the exact correction parameters.

To summarize, in the comparison between theory and numerics, extreme caution is needed in the extraction of the fractal dimensions $`D_S`$ from the numerical data. The corrections-to-scaling theory presented already implies that the finite size effects arising from the finite cluster size are strong. In addition, effects coming from the finite lattice size lead to an uncontrollable bias that is very difficult to handle.

## VI Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Carlo Vanderzande for drawing our attention to their earlier work. We acknowledge support from the German-Israeli Foundation. This work has also been supported in part by the Academy of Finland through its Center of Excellence program. J. A. wishes to thank the Vaisala Foundation for financial support.