Notes on the p-spin glass studied via Hamilton-Jacobi and smooth-cavity techniques

In these notes, we continue our investigation of classical toy models of disordered statistical mechanics, through techniques recently developed and tested mainly on the paradigmatic Sherrington-Kirkpatrick spin glass. Here, we consider the p-spin-glass model with Ising spins and interactions drawn from a normal distribution N[0, 1]. After a general presentation of its properties (e. g., self-averaging of the free energy, existence of a suitable thermodynamic limit), we study its equilibrium behavior within the Hamilton-Jacobi framework and the smooth cavity approach. Through the former we find both the RS and the 1-RSB expressions for the free-energy, coupled with their self-consistent relations for the overlaps. Through the latter, we recover these results as irreducible expression, and we study the generalization of the overlap polynomial identities suitable for this model; a discussion on their deep connection with the structure of the internal energy and the entropy closes the investigation. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4729233]