Eur. Phys. J. B 13, 99-105 (2000)
https://doi.org/10.1007/s100510050014

Memory interference effects in spin glasses

¹ Department of Materials Science, Uppsala University, Box 534, SE-751 21 Uppsala, Sweden
² Service de Physique de l'État Condensé, CEA Saclay, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France

Corresponding authors: ^a Per.Nordblad@Angstrom.uu.se - ^b vincent@spec.saclay.cea.fr

Received: 28 April 1999
Published online: 15 January 2000

Abstract

When a spin glass is cooled down, a memory of the cooling process is imprinted in the spin structure. This memory can be disclosed in a continuous heating measurement of the ac-susceptibility. E.g., if a continuous cooling process is intermittently halted during a certain aging time at one or two intermediate temperatures, the trace of the previous stop(s) is recovered when the sample is continuously re-heated [1]. However, heating the sample above the aging temperature, but keeping it below T_g, erases the memory of the thermal history at lower temperatures. We also show that a memory imprinted at a higher temperature can be erased by waiting a long enough time at a lower temperature. Predictions from two complementary spin glass descriptions, a hierarchical phase space model and a real space droplet picture are contested with these memory phenomena and interference effects.