Contributor info: Dr Giampaolo Folena

Giampaolo Folena, Francesco Zamponi

SciPost Phys. 15, 109 (2023) · published 21 September 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

The weak ergodicity breaking hypothesis postulates that out-of-equilibrium glassy systems lose memory of their initial state despite being unable to reach an equilibrium stationary state. It is a milestone of glass physics, and has provided a lot of insight on the physical properties of glass aging. Despite its undoubted usefulness as a guiding principle, its general validity remains a subject of debate. Here, we present evidence that this hypothesis does not hold for a class of mean-field spin glass models. While most of the qualitative physical picture of aging remains unaffected, our results suggest that some important technical aspects should be revisited.