Understanding Vogel-Fulcher-like equilibration times through the partial equilibration scenario (vol 142, 36003, 2023)

- We test a post-quench Partial Equilibration Scenario (PES) of Ritort and colleagues, through Monte Carlo quench simulations, of a vector-spin model for a cubic-to-tetragonal, marten-sitic structural transition. We confirm the PES signature distribution of an exponential tail in heat releases, scaled in an effective search temperature that regulates energy-lowering passages between fixed-energy shells. Our simulations find that this effective temperature vanishes linearly in the deviation of the quench temperature from a divergence temperature, where passage bot-tlenecks in phase space segment their topology, and entropy barriers diverge. Equilibration delay times, exponential in the inverse effective temperature, are thus predicted to show singular Vogel-Fulcher behaviour, understood here as an arrest of PES heat releases to the bath, and confirmed by experimental data on martensitic alloys.