Severe slowing-down and universality of the dynamics in disordered interacting many-body systems: ageing and ultraslow diffusion

Lloyd Sanders, Michael A. Lomholt, Ludvig Lizana, Karl Fogelmark, Ralf Metzler, Tobias Ambjörnsson

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    Low-dimensional, many-body systems are often characterized by ultraslow dynamics. We study a labelled particle in a generic system of identical particles with hard-core interactions in a strongly disordered environment. The disorder is manifested through intermittent motion with scale-free sticking times at the single particle level. While for a non-interacting particle we find anomalous diffusion of the power-law form < x(2)(t)> similar or equal to t(alpha) of the mean squared displacement with 0 < alpha < 1, we demonstrate here that the combination of the disordered environment with the many-body interactions leads to an ultraslow, logarithmic dynamics < x(2)(t)> similar or equal to log(1/2)t with a universal 1/2 exponent. Even when a characteristic sticking time exists but the fluctuations of sticking times diverge we observe the mean squared displacement < x(2)(t)> similar or equal to t(gamma) with 0 < gamma < 1/2, that is slower than the famed Harris law < x(2)(t)> similar or equal to t(1/2) without disorder. We rationalize the results in terms of a subordination to a counting process, in which each transition is dominated by the forward waiting time of an ageing continuous time process.
    Original languageEnglish
    Article number113050
    JournalNew Journal of Physics
    Volume16
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2014

    Subject classification (UKÄ)

    • Biophysics
    • Other Physics Topics

    Free keywords

    • single-file diffusion
    • continuous time random walks
    • ageing

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Severe slowing-down and universality of the dynamics in disordered interacting many-body systems: ageing and ultraslow diffusion'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this