Replica-symmetry breaking transitions in the large deviations of the ground-state of a spherical spin-glass

Abstract

We derive, within the replica formalism, a generalisation of the Crisanti-Sommers formula to describe the large deviation function (LDF) ${\cal L}(e)$ for the speed-$N$ atypical fluctuations of the intensive ground-state energy $e$ of a generic spherical spin-glass in the presence of a random external magnetic field of variance $Γ$. We then analyse our exact formula for the LDF in much detail for the Replica symmetric, single step Replica Symmetry Breaking (1-RSB) and Full Replica Symmetry Breaking (FRSB) situations. Our main qualitative conclusion is that the level of RSB governing the LDF may be different from that for the typical ground state. We find that while the deepest ground-states are always controlled by a LDF of replica symmetric form, beyond a finite threshold $e\geq e_{t}$ a replica-symmetry breaking starts to be operative. These findings resolve the puzzling discrepancy between our earlier replica calculations for the $p=2$ spherical spin-glass and the rigorous results by Dembo and Zeitouni which we are able to reproduce invoking an 1-RSB pattern. Finally at an even larger critical energy $e_{c}\geq e_{t}$, acting as a "wall", the LDF diverges logarithmically, which we interpret as a change in the large deviation speed from $N$ to a faster growth. In addition, we show that in the limit $Γ\to 0$ the LDF takes non-trivial scaling forms (i) ${\cal L}(e) \sim G((e-e_c)/Γ)$ in the vicinity of the wall (ii) ${\cal L}(e) \sim Γ^{ην} F((e-e_{\rm typ})/Γ^ν)$ in the vicinity of the typical energy, characterised by two new exponents $η\geq 1$ and $ν$ characterising universality classes. Via matching the latter allows us to formulate several conjectures concerning the regime of {\it typical fluctuations}, identified as $e-e_{\rm typ} \sim N^{-1/η}$ and $Γ\sim N^{-1/(ην)}$.