Diffusive thermal dynamics for the spin-S Ising ferromagnet

We introduce an alternative thermal diffusive dynamics for the spin-S Ising ferromagnet realized by means of a random walker. The latter hops across the sites of the lattice and flips the relevant spins according to a probability depending on both the local magnetic arrangement and the temperature. The random walker, intended to model a diffusing excitation, interacts with the lattice so that it is biased towards those sites where it can achieve an energy gain. In order to adapt our algorithm to systems made up of arbitrary spins, some non trivial generalizations are implied. In particular, we will apply the new dynamics to two-dimensional spin-1/2 and spin-1 systems analyzing their relaxation and critical behavior. Some interesting differences with respect to canonical results are found; moreover, by comparing the outcomes from the examined cases, we will point out their main features, possibly extending the results to spin-S systems. Copyright EDP Sciences/Società Italiana di Fisica/Springer-Verlag 2005