Classical infinite-range-interaction Heisenberg ferromagnetic model: metastability and sensitivity to initial conditions.

An N-sized inertial classical Heisenberg ferromagnet, which consists of a modification of the well-known standard model, where the spins are replaced by classical rotators, is studied in the limit of infinite-range interactions. The usual canonical-ensemble mean-field solution of the inertial classical n-vector ferromagnet (for which n=3 recovers the particular Heisenberg model considered herein) is briefly reviewed, showing the well-known second-order phase transition. This Heisenberg model is studied numerically within the microcanonical ensemble through molecular dynamics. In what concerns the caloric curve, it is shown that, far from criticality, the kinetic temperature obtained at the long-time-limit microcanonical-ensemble simulation recovers well the equilibrium canonical-ensemble estimate, whereas, close to criticality, a discrepancy (presumably due to finite-size effects) is found. The time evolution of the kinetic temperature indicates that a basin of attraction exists for the initial conditions for which the system evolves into a metastable state, whose duration diverges as N--> infinity, before attaining the terminal thermal equilibrium. Such a metastable state is observed for a whole range of energies, which starts right below criticality and extends up to very high energies (in fact, the gap between the kinetic temperatures associated with the metastable and the terminal-equilibrium states is expected to disappear only as one approaches infinite energy). To the best our knowledge, this has never before been observed on similar Hamiltonian models, in a noticeable way, for such a large range of energies. For example, for the XY (n=2) version of the present model, such a behavior was observed only near criticality. It is shown also that the (metastable state) maximum Lyapunov exponent decreases with N like lambda(max) approximately N-kappa, where for the initial conditions employed herein (maximal magnetization), kappa=0.225+/-0.030, both above and below the critical point.