Metastability in Markov processes

DOI10.1088/1742-5468/2006/08/P08013zbMATH Open1459.82366arXivcond-mat/0608439OpenAlexW3106367740MaRDI QIDQ5239303FDOQ5239303

Authors: H. Larralde, F. Leyvraz, David P. Sanders 

Publication date: 22 October 2019

Published in: Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We present a formalism to describe slowly decaying systems in the context of finite Markov chains obeying detailed balance. We show that phase space can be partitioned into approximately decoupled regions, in which one may introduce restricted Markov chains which are close to the original process but do not leave these regions. Within this context, we identify the conditions under which the decaying system can be considered to be in a metastable state. Furthermore, we show that such metastable states can be described in thermodynamic terms and define their free energy. This is accomplished showing that the probability distribution describing the metastable state is indeed proportional to the equilibrium distribution, as is commonly assumed. We test the formalism numerically in the case of the two-dimensional kinetic Ising model, using the Wang--Landau algorithm to show this proportionality explicitly, and confirm that the proportionality constant is as derived in the theory. Finally, we extend the formalism to situations in which a system can have several metastable states.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0608439

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zbMATH Keywords

metastable statesclassical Monte Carlo simulationsstochastic particle dynamics (theory)

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Interacting random processes; statistical mechanics type models; percolation theory (60K35) Monte Carlo methods applied to problems in statistical mechanics (82M31)

Cites Work

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Cited In (11)

• Metastable states, transitions, basins and borders at finite temperatures
• On the essential features of metastability: Tunnelling time and critical configurations
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• Metastability of exponentially perturbed Markov chains
• Metastability
• Rigorous treatment of metastable states in the van der Waals-Maxwell theory
• Metastable Markov chains
• Metastability of logit dynamics for coordination games
• On metastability
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• Pico-canonical ensembles: A theoretical description of metastable states

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