2012/09/30 by Thomas Vojta
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Adhesion, Friction, and Surface Interactions #Material Dynamics and Properties #Theoretical and Computational Physics #cond-mat.dis-nn #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.86.051137
published as Phys. Rev. E 86, 051137 (2012) · 12 pages, 11 eps figures included, applies simulation and data analysis techniques developed in arXiv:0810.1569 to the 3D contact process, final version as published
arxiv created 2012/11/30 · openalex publication_date 2012/11/30 · arxiv updated 2012/12/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The absorbing-state transition in the three-dimensional contact process with and without quenched randomness is investigated by means of Monte Carlo simulations. In the clean case, a reweighting technique is combined with a careful extrapolation of the data to infinite time to determine with high accuracy the critical behavior in the three-dimensional directed percolation universality class. In the presence of quenched spatial disorder, our data demonstrate that the absorbing-state transition is governed by an unconventional infinite-randomness critical point featuring activated dynamical scaling. The critical behavior of this transition does not depend on the disorder strength, i.e., it is universal. Close to the disordered critical point, the dynamics is characterized by the nonuniversal power laws typical of a Griffiths phase. We compare our findings to the results of other numerical methods, and we relate them to a general classification of phase transitions in disordered systems based on the rare region dimensionality.