C h a p te r 6

C o n c lu s io n s
In the first problem studied in this thesis we examined the question of existence of local
thermal equilibrium in the heat-conducting steady state. W e defined a new model, which is
the XY model with a dynamics that is stochastic, conserves energ}-, and allows only single
spin-flips. A n important feature of the dynamics studied by us is that it involves no extra
degrees of freedom but still gives correct equilibrium properties. Also this djTiamics can be
generalized to other 0 (n) models.
First we studied the equilibrium situation with no coupling to heai baths. W e showed
that the dynamics is not ergodic in all regions in phase space. Howe\-er it seems, from our
simulation results, that the actual volume in phase space where the d\Tiainics is non-ergodic
is small. A more detailed study of the phase space structure is needed in order to fully
understand the above results. The one-dimensional case with equal coupling constants was
found to be special and in this case there are an infinity of conservation laws.
W e then studied the model with coupling to heat baths. In this case we showed that any
/
conservation laws that are present go away, and the dynamics b e c o m e fully ergodic even
when a single spin is coupled to a heat bath. For coupling to heat baths at two different
temperatures we found the interesting result that in one dimension, local thermodynamic
equilibrium was not obtained, even when we took the thermodynamic Emit when the heat
current became vanishingly small. W e showed this to be a result of the presence of an infinity
of conservation laws in the isolated system.
In two dimensions where we expect no extra conservation laws, we found, in simulations,
that L T E does seem to exist. It would be interesting to find a model La d > 1 which shows
absence of L T E for vanishingly small currents.
 In the second part of the thesis we studied a new model of SOC, namely the Eulerian
walkers model. This model has many properties similar to the Abelian sandpile model. Thus
we showed that the operator algebra in the E W M is identical to A S M and that there exists a
one-to-one correspondence between steady state configurations of E W M and spanning trees.
However we found that the dynamical properties of E W M are quite different those of
A S M . For example, except in one dimension, we found that avalanches in this model are very
different from A S M avalanches and do not have a proper thermodynamic limit. Avalanches
in the two dimensional E W M have an interesting structure. Each avalanche consists of a
sequence of loops being formed. The distribution of sizes of these loops has a power-law
distribution. This distribution seems difficult to calculate and we were only been able to
obtain the distribution of sizes of the first loop that is formed. This follows from our results
on the loop-erased walk.
W e also defined a more general model of which the E W M and A S M were shown to be
special cases. The E W M was shown to be in a different class from all the other models that
followed from this generalization. A more detailed study of the generalized model remains
to be done.
As a by-product of our study on the E W M , we obtained the interesting result on the
limit cycles that result from the motion of a single walker in a closed graph. W e found that
independent of initial conditions and for any graph, the limit cycles are Euler circuits on the
graph. W e also obtained results on the distance travelled by a walker moving in an infinite
medium with random initial conditions.
Finally we studied the distribution of sizes of erased loops in the loop-erased random
walk. The L E R W can also be related to the spanning-tree problem and we used this relation
to express the size distribution of erased loops to the distribution of sizes of loops formed
when a bond is randomly added to a spanning tree. W e also gave a scaling argument to
obtain this distribution on both regular and fractal lattices. For a particular deterministic
fractal, namely the Sierpinski gasket, we verified that both methods gave the same results.