Dynamical and stationary critical behavior of the Ising ferromagnet in a thermal gradient

In this paper we present and discuss results of Monte Carlo numerical simulations of the two-dimensional Ising ferromagnet in contact with a heat bath that intrinsically has a thermal gradient. The extremes of the magnet are at temperatures $T_1<T_c<T_2$, where $T_c$ is the Onsager critical temperature. In this way one can observe a phase transition between an ordered phase ($T<T_c$) and a disordered one ($T>T_c$) by means of a single simulation. By starting the simulations with fully disordered initial configurations with magnetization $m\equiv 0$ corresponding to $T=\infty$, which are then suddenly annealed to a preset thermal gradient, we study the short-time critical dynamic behavior of the system. Also, by setting a small initial magnetization $m=m_0$, we study the critical initial increase of the order parameter. Furthermore, by starting the simulations from fully ordered configurations, which correspond to the ground state at T=0 and are subsequently quenched to a preset gradient, we study the critical relaxation dynamics of the system. Additionally, we perform stationary measurements ($t\rightarrow\infty$) that are discussed in terms of the standard finite-size scaling theory. We conclude that our numerical simulation results of the Ising magnet in a thermal gradient, which are rationalized in terms of both dynamic and standard scaling arguments, are fully consistent with well established results obtained under equilibrium conditions.