English

Dynamical renormalization group analysis of $O(n)$ model in steady shear flow

Statistical Mechanics 2026-05-20 v2 Soft Condensed Matter

Abstract

We study the critical behavior of the O(n)O(n) model under steady shear flow using a dynamical renormalization group (RG) method. Incorporating the strong anisotropy in scaling ansatz, which has been neglected in earlier RG analyses, we identify a new stable Gaussian fixed point. This fixed point reproduces the anisotropic scaling of static and dynamical critical exponents for both non-conserved (Model A) and conserved (Model B) order parameters. Notably, the upper critical dimensions are dup=2d_{\text{up}} = 2 for the non-conserved order parameter (Model A) and dup=0d_{\text{up}} = 0 for the conserved order parameter (Model B), implying that the mean-field critical exponents are observed even in both d=2d=2 and 33 dimensions. Furthermore, the scaling exponent of the order parameter is negative for all dimensions d2d \geq 2, indicating that shear flow stabilizes the long-range order associated with continuous symmetry breaking even in d=2d = 2. In other words, the lower critical dimensions are dlow<2d_{\rm low} < 2 for both types of order parameters. This contrasts with equilibrium systems, where the Hohenberg -- Mermin -- Wagner theorem prohibits continuous symmetry breaking in d=2d = 2.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2412.02111,
  title  = {Dynamical renormalization group analysis of $O(n)$ model in steady shear flow},
  author = {Harukuni Ikeda and Hiroyoshi Nakano},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2412.02111},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

16 pages, 2 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-28T20:20:43.965Z