Breaking universality in random sequential adsorption on a square lattice with long-range correlated defects

Area of Science:

• Physics
• Statistical Mechanics
• Materials Science

Background:

• Random sequential adsorption (RSA) on lattices exhibits universal critical exponents for jamming and percolation transitions.
• Universality is typically maintained even with randomly distributed defective sites.
• Defects with spatial long-range correlations, however, can alter these established universal behaviors.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of spatially correlated defects on jamming and percolation transitions in RSA.
• To determine if universality is preserved when defects exhibit power-law spatial correlations.
• To analyze the critical exponents and percolation threshold under varying defect correlation strengths.

Main Methods:

• Large-scale Monte Carlo simulations were employed.
• Dimers were deposited on a square lattice.
• Finite-size scaling analysis was used to study critical phenomena.

Main Results:

• Systems with strong spatial correlations in defects deviate from universal behavior.
• Critical exponents for jamming (ν_{j}) and percolation (ν) become nonuniversal.
• Percolation threshold decreases with increasing spatial correlation strength.
• A difference in the percolation correlation length exponent (ν) was observed for correlated defects.

Conclusions:

• The presence of spatially long-range correlated defects breaks the universality class of jamming and percolation transitions.
• Nonuniversal critical exponents and modified percolation thresholds are observed under strong defect correlations.
• The findings highlight the importance of defect spatial characteristics in statistical physics models.