cond-mat.stat-mech papers

Statistical mechanics explores how the chaotic motion of countless tiny particles gives rise to the predictable laws governing heat, pressure, and phase transitions. This field bridges the gap between the microscopic world of atoms and the macroscopic reality we experience daily, offering deep insights into why materials behave the way they do.

On Gist.Science, we process every new preprint in this category as it appears on arXiv to make these complex findings accessible to everyone. For each paper, we provide both a plain-language explanation for the curious reader and a detailed technical summary for specialists, ensuring that groundbreaking research is never lost behind a wall of jargon.

Below are the latest papers in statistical mechanics, freshly curated and summarized to help you understand the cutting edge of this fascinating discipline.

Hadamard regularization of open quantum systems coupled to unstructured environments in the Schwinger-Keldysh formalism

This paper proposes a Hadamard regularization-based separation-of-scales ansatz within the Schwinger-Keldysh formalism to develop a computationally efficient time-stepping algorithm for the Kadanoff-Baym equations, enabling the simulation of damped quantum harmonic oscillators in unstructured environments while capturing non-Markovian and renormalization effects without prohibitive cubic scaling.

Jakob Dolgner2026-03-17⚛️ quant-ph

Energy Dynamics and Partial Consumption in Foraging

This paper investigates how a forager's survival time is extended by partial food consumption governed by an energy threshold $k$ , revealing that while lifetime generally increases with the ratio $k/S$ , the scaling exponent of survival time and the behavior of food statistics undergo distinct transitions, including a critical threshold at $k^* \sim \sqrt{S}$ and a crossover at $k/S \sim 0.5$ .

Md Aquib Molla, Sanchari Goswami2026-03-17🔬 cond-mat

Adaptive tensor train metadynamics for high-dimensional free energy exploration

This paper introduces TT-Metadynamics, a scalable method that compresses the bias potential in metadynamics into a low-rank tensor train representation using a sketching algorithm, thereby enabling efficient free energy exploration in high-dimensional systems with up to 14 collective variables without the exponential computational cost of standard approaches.

Nils E. Strand, Siyao Yang, Yuehaw Khoo, Aaron R. Dinner2026-03-17🔬 physics

Information-Driven Phase Transition on Weighted Graphs with Spontaneous Dimensional Sensitivity

This paper introduces a weighted graph model (FIU) where information-driven topology evolution governed by spectral curvature exhibits a sharp phase transition at a critical coupling strength, revealing a stable discrete Poisson relation between curvature and information flux that spontaneously demonstrates dimensional sensitivity through distinct system-size collapse thresholds in 2D versus 3D lattices.

Valerio Dolci2026-03-17🔬 cond-mat

Entropy Maximization and Weak Gibbsianity of Quasi-Free Fermionic States

This paper resolves the long-standing questions of uniqueness and weak Gibbsianity for gauge-invariant quasi-free fermionic states by proving that, under specific conditions on their momentum-space two-point functions, these states uniquely maximize entropy among translation-invariant states and are indeed weak Gibbs states, with both properties derived directly from thermodynamic formalism.

Vojkan Jakšić, Claude-Alain Pillet, Anna Szczepanek2026-03-17🔢 math-ph

Possibilities of applying boundary functionals of random processes to nuclear safety problems

This paper assesses the application of boundary functionals of random risk processes to nuclear safety, proposing that these mathematical tools can accurately model neutron clustering in advanced reactors and accident scenarios by replacing normal distributions with stable limiting distributions to bridge abstract percolation theory with engineering protection settings.

V. V. Ryazanov2026-03-17🔬 cond-mat

Intrinsic Error Thresholds in Nearly Critical Toric Codes

This paper demonstrates that nearly critical topological quantum codes, such as the transverse-field toric code, retain a finite intrinsic error threshold against local Pauli decoherence because the resulting inter-replica defects are perturbatively irrelevant to the bulk critical point, preventing the destruction of encoded information despite strong quantum fluctuations.

Zack Weinstein, Samuel J. Garratt2026-03-17🔬 cond-mat

Coarsening in the long-range Persistent Voter Model

This paper demonstrates through numerical simulations and analytical treatment that the long-range Persistent Voter Model in one and two dimensions belongs to the same universality class as the long-range Ising model, showing that opinion inertia mitigates interfacial noise to restore Ising-like coarsening kinetics regardless of the interaction range exponent $\alpha$ .

Jeferson J. Arenzon, F. Corberi, W. G. Dantas, L. Smaldone2026-03-17🔬 cond-mat

Sign-Indefinite Helicity and the Structure of Weak Turbulence in Inertial and Non-Hermitian Waves

This paper investigates how sign-indefinite helicity conservation shapes weak turbulence in rotating and odd-viscous flows by demonstrating that helical decomposition reorganizes energy cascades into sign-definite branch-specific transfers, leading to systematic backscatter and unique scale-invariant spectra validated by numerical analysis.

Shahaf Aharony Shapira, Michal Shavit2026-03-17🔬 physics

Nonholonomic constraints at finite temperature

This paper demonstrates that naively applying stochastic and dissipative terms to nonholonomic systems like the Chaplygin sleigh violates the second law of thermodynamics, but this paradox is resolved by modeling the constraint as a viscous limit that necessitates accompanying stochastic forces, thereby restoring thermodynamic consistency and establishing fundamental limits on the physical realizability of idealized nonholonomic constraints.

Eduardo A. Jagla, Anthony M. Bloch, Alberto G. Rojo2026-03-17🔢 math-ph

← Previous Next →