Strong disorder fixed point in absorbing state phase transitions

Abstract

The effect of quenched disorder on non-equilibrium phase transitions in the directed percolation universality class is studied by a strong disorder renormalization group approach and by density matrix renormalization group calculations. We show that for sufficiently strong disorder the critical behaviour is controlled by a strong disorder fixed point and in one dimension the critical exponents are conjectured to be exact: β=(3-\sqrt{5})/2 and ν_\perp=2. For disorder strengths outside the attractive region of this fixed point, disorder dependent critical exponents are detected. Existing numerical results in two dimensions can be interpreted within a similar scenario.

final version as accepted for PRL, contains new results in two dimensions