The potts glass in uniform and random fields: a monte carlo investigation

As a simple model of an anisotropic orientational glass with short range forces, the 3-state Potts model on the simple cubic lattice with nearest neighbor interactions drawn from a Gaussian distribution is considered. With Monte Carlo methods we study the response of the system to a uniform “field” which favors one of the states. This is motivated by experiments which apply stress that favors one molecular orientation of the quadrupolar glass. The responsem to that fieldh=H/k _BT is analyzed in terms of an expansionm= χ₁ h+χ₁ h ²+χ₁ h ³+..., where χ₁ is the linear susceptibility, and χ₂,χ₁₃ are nonlinear susceptibilities. Unlike the case of spin glasses, where the spin inversion symmetry of the system in the absence of fields implies χ₂≡0,χ₂ is nonzero here and diverges to −∞ at the zero temperature transition of the model, while χ₃ diverges to +∞ as in spin glasses. At inifinite temperature, however, χ₁=1/3, χ₂=1/18 and χ₃=-1/54, i.e. the nonlinear susceptibilities have a different sign as at low temperature. In contrast, a random field does not induce a uniform order parameterm but only a glass order parameterq. The temperature dependence of this glass order parameterq(T) shows for intermediate field strength order parameterq(T) shows for intermediate field strength a maximum of the slopedq(T)/dT very similar to corresponding experiments.