First excitations in two- and three-dimensional random-field Ising systems

We present results on the first excited states for the random-field Ising model. These are based on an exact algorithm, with which we study the excitation energies and the excitation sizes for two- and three-dimensional random-field Ising systems with a Gaussian distribution of the random fields. Our algorithm is based on an approach of Frontera and Vives which, in some cases, does not yield the true first excited states. Using the corrected algorithm, we find that the order–disorder phase transition for three dimensions is visible via crossings of the excitation energy curves for different system sizes, while in two dimensions these crossings converge to zero disorder. Furthermore, we obtain in three dimensions a fractal dimension of the excitation cluster of d_s = 2.42(2). We also provide analytical droplet arguments to understand the behavior of the excitation energies for small and large disorder as well as close to the critical point.