English

Critical behavior of the driven Curie-Weiss model

Statistical Mechanics 2026-07-06 v1

Abstract

We complete the phase diagram of the macroscopic Curie-Weiss magnet in a time-periodic external field, as a function of temperature and driving parameters. There is a regime (large enough driving amplitude and frequency, at low temperatures) where stable paramagnetic and ferromagnetic phases coexist. In particular, we present a new detailed analysis of the (nonequilibrium) specific heat, diverging at the same critical inverse temperature βc\beta_c as the magnetic susceptibility. The new Curie temperature decreases with the driving, and we find critical exponent α=1\alpha=1 for ββc\beta\downarrow \beta_c, and α0.86\alpha\simeq 0.86 for ββc\beta\uparrow \beta_c, even for small driving. A Floquet analysis shows the nature of the criticality, which is dynamical, with implications that remain unseen and are mostly impossible when the system is in thermal equilibrium.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.05130,
  title  = {Critical behavior of the driven Curie-Weiss model},
  author = {Ruohan Xu and Faezeh Khodabandehlou and Christian Maes},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.05130},
  year   = {2026}
}