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Size-Stretched Exponential Relaxation in a Model with Arrested States

We study the effect of rapid quench to zero temperature in a model with competing interactions, evolving through conserved spin dynamics. In a certain regime of model parameters, we find that the model belongs to the broader class of kinetically constrained models, however, the dynamics is different from that of a glass. The system shows stretched exponential relaxation with the unusual feature that the relaxation time diverges as a power of the system size. Explicitly, we find that the spatial correlation function decays as $\exp(-2r/\sqrt{L})$ as a function of spatial separation $r$ in a system with $L$ sites in steady state, while the temporal auto-correlation function follows $\exp(-(t/τ_L)^{1/2})$, where $t$ is the time and $τ_L$ proportional to $L$. In the coarsening regime, after time $t_w$, there are two growing length scales, namely $\mathcal{L}(t_w) \sim t_w^{1/2}$ and $\mathcal{R}(t_w) \sim t_w^{1/4}$; the spatial correlation function decays as $\exp(-r/ \mathcal{R}(t_w))$. Interestingly, the stretched exponential form of the auto-correlation function of a single typical sample in steady state differs markedly from that averaged over an ensemble of initial conditions resulting from different quenches; the latter shows a slow power law decay at large times.