Low temperature spin glass fluctuations: expanding around a spherical approximation

The spin glass behavior near zero temperature is a complicated matter. To get an easier access to the spin glass order parameter Q(x) and, at the same time, keep track of Q ab, its matrix aspect, and hence of the Hessian controlling stability, we investigate an expansion of the replicated free energy functional around its "spherical" approximation. This expansion is obtained by introducing a constraint-field and a (double) Legendre Transform expressed in terms of spin correlators and constraint-field correlators. The spherical approximation has the spin fluctuations treated with a global constraint and the expansion of the Legendre Transformed functional brings them closer and closer to the Ising local constraint. In this paper we examine the first contribution of the systematic corrections to the spherical starting point. © 2010 EDP Sciences, SIF, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.