Spin-glass behavior in frustrated Ising models with chaotic renormalization-group trajectories

Competing ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic interactions are studied in hierarchical Ising models, which are exactly solvable with nonclassical phase transitions at finite temperature. As model parameters are changed to increase frustration, a spin-glass phase is entered with chaotic renormalization-group trajectories. At successively longer distances, strong and weak spin correlations are encountered in a chaotic sequence. A microscopic description of a spin-glass emerges, with noncontiguous spins mutually pinned within distinct infinite subsets.