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# Correlation Functions and Fluctuation-Dissipation Relation in Driven Mixtures: an exactly solvable model

## I Introduction

In the field of modern statistical mechanics many efforts have been devoted to understand the properties of non-equilibrium. These studies were promoted by the recognition that many relevant systems, among which glasses and coarsening systems, are intrinsecally far from equilibrium and, therefore, cannot be described by theories formulated as extensions of Gibbs statistical mechanics. Instead, specific concepts relative to the non-equilibrium state must be developed. A promising subject in this field is the attempt to build an out of equilibrium fluctuation-dissipation theorem (FDT). Specifically, the aim of these studies is to investigate if the relation between the (integrated) response function $`\chi `$ and the autocorrelation function $`D`$ is meaningful and bears some relevant informations regarding the non-equilibrium state. There are several reasons for expecting this, the most natural being induction from the equilibrium case. In equilibrium these two quantities are linearly related by means of the standard FDT and a fundamental quantity, the temperature of the system, appears as the coefficient of this relation. For off-equilibrium systems we do not have nowadays an analogous theorem, of such a wide generality, but conjectures, indications or, sometimes, proofs exist claiming that, in restricted contexts, the relation between $`\chi `$ and $`D`$ can be inferred on general grounds. In particular, the slope of the curve $`\chi (D)`$ has been interpreted as an effective  temperature of the system, different from that of the thermal bath.

These concepts, which were originally developed in the study of turbulence  have been successively applied to the glassy state  and, more generally, to aging systems  where the non-equilibrium state is generally determined by the change of a thermodynamic control parameter, as in a temperature quench.

A different non-equilibrium situation is very often considered because of its physical relevance: The case of driven systems. These systems are subjected to an external forcing that prevents them to attain equilibrium. Examples of this situation range from systems subjected to a force which does not derive from a potential, as sheared fluids or conductor wires with a potential difference applied at their hands, to systems with externally imposed thermal gradients or magnetic materials under the action of an oscillatory magnetic field and tapped materials. Despite many studies on this subject  much less is known on the effect of the drive on the fluctuation-dissipation relation, despite some progress has been done recently .

The complexity of the glassy state, and the difficulty of both analytical and numerical results in this field, make the task of understanding the mechanisms whereby the FDT can be generalized a hard question. Therefore, in this paper we focus on binary coarsening systems which, besides being physically interesting of their own, can be regarded as simple paradigms of aging behaviour. We solve exactly the dynamics of a model for a ferromagnet quenched from an initial disordered state under the action of an external driving field. This kind of process is relevant in many physical contexts, as it will be discussed later. We consider a coarse-grained system described by the usual double-well $`\phi ^4`$ hamiltonian where $`\phi `$ is a scalar order parameter field. A Langevin dynamics is considered and the order parameter is not conserved. The driving field is a planar shear or Couette flow. This model, without the shear flow, is referred to in the literature as model A. The choice of this particular flow, besides analytical tractability, is also motivated by its practical relevance, which appears clearly in the physics of complex fluids and binary mixtures, where the behaviour of the stress as a function of the shear rate is one of the main characterizations of fluid systems. Moreover, the structure of binary and complex fluids is strongly affected by the flow and this is relevant in many applications  and interesting for its theoretical implications. In phase separation of binary mixtures, for instance, it was found that not only the morphology but also the laws of dynamical scaling are affected by the shear-induced anisotropy  and new phenomena related to the presence of stress in segregating systems, as logarithmic-time periodic oscillations  and violation of dynamical scaling  have been observed.

In this paper we focus on a non-conserved order parameter; however we believe that our study could be also useful as a preliminary step for understanding more complex systems with conserved ordered parameter. By its own the model of this paper can describe the behaviour of liquid crystals undergoing the isotropic-nematic transition where the order parameter is not conserved . The phase separation properties of this model have been studied in  where only the behaviour of one-time correlations was considered.

The role of the non-linear term in the $`\phi ^4`$ hamiltonian is crucial for quenching below and at the critical temperature. However its presence makes the analytical study of the model impossible unless one considers approximate theories. Among these the so-called large-$`N`$ limit has played a prominent role in the study of phase separation. The approximation takes into account a vectorial system with an infinite number of components $`N`$. This model, which can be solved by a self-consistent closure, is one of the few cases where it is possible to illustrate the out-of-equilibrium behaviour of a coarsening system by exact calculations .

In the case without shear the large-$`N`$ approximation captures the essence of the phenomenon at a semi-quantitative level . In this work we use this approximation to calculate the two-time correlation function showing how the dynamical exponents are affected by the presence of the flow. The response function can be also exactly computed allowing a careful discussion of the behaviour of the fluctuation-dissipation relation.

The plan of the paper is the following. In Sec. II the model is defined and in Sec. III its stationary critical properties are discussed. In Sec. IV the self-consistent condition is explicitly worked out and one-time quantities are computed. Two-time quantities, the autocorrelation function and the response function, are studied in Sec. V and Sec. VI. The violation of the FDT is considered in Sec. VII and a final discussion is presented in Sec. VIII. Appendixes A-D, containing some mathematical details, complete the paper.

## II The model

We consider a system with dynamics described by the equations

$$\frac{\phi ^\alpha (\stackrel{}{x},t)}{t}+\stackrel{}{}(\phi ^\alpha (\stackrel{}{x},t)\stackrel{}{v})=\mathrm{\Gamma }\frac{\delta [\stackrel{}{\phi }]}{\delta \phi ^\alpha (\stackrel{}{x},t)}+\eta ^\alpha (\stackrel{}{x},t),\alpha =1,\mathrm{},N$$
(1)
where $`\{\phi ^\alpha \}`$ are the $`N`$ components of the vectorial order parameter. For instance, in the case of magnetic systems, $`\stackrel{}{\phi }`$ is the local magnetization, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is a transport coefficient and the gaussian white noise $`\eta `$, representing thermal fluctuations, has expectations

$`\eta ^\alpha (\stackrel{}{x},t)=0`$ (2)
$`\eta ^\alpha (\stackrel{}{x},t)\eta ^\beta (\stackrel{}{x}^{},t^{})=2T\delta _{\alpha \beta }\mathrm{\Gamma }\delta (\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}^{})\delta (tt^{})`$ (3)
where $`T`$ is the temperature of the thermal bath. Without the convective term on the left hand side, Eq. (1) would be the usual Langevin equation which governs the purely relaxational dynamics of a system with non-conserved order parameter and hamiltonian $`[\stackrel{}{\phi }]`$. In that case the relations (3) would assure that in thermodynamic equilibrium at temperature $`T`$ the fluctuation-dissipation theorem is verified. Here Eqs. (3) are supposed to hold on the basis of local equilibrium . More precisely it is assumed that the non-equilibrium system can be subdivided into cells small enough that any thermodynamic property \- which in nonequilibrium situations may depend on space - vary slightly over one cell, but large enough that equilibrium statistical mechanics holds within each cell . Furthermore, since thermodynamic properties out of equilibrium may depend on time, the characteristic time over which a macroscopic fluctuation dies away within one cell must be much smaller than the typical evolution time of the system. This implies that over intervals much smaller than this evolution time local equilibrium is mantained in each cell and the fluctuation-dissipation theorem holds. This will be recovered in Sec.VII.

The velocity $`\stackrel{}{v}`$ in Eq. (1) is chosen to be the steady planar shear flow

$$\stackrel{}{v}=\gamma y\stackrel{}{e}_x$$
(4)
where $`\gamma `$ is the spatially homogeneous shear rate and $`\stackrel{}{e}_x`$ is a unit vector in the flow direction. We observe that, in spite of the presence of a velocity field proportional to a space coordinate, translational invariance still holds, since a shift of $`a`$ in the $`y`$-direction is equivalent to a galilean transformation to a new reference frame globally moving with an added velocity $`a\gamma `$ in the $`x`$-direction. This allows in the following to introduce Fourier transforms and the standard definition of the structure factor . The hamiltonian has the Ginzburg-Landau form

$$[\stackrel{}{\phi }]=_Vd^dx\left[\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{}{\phi }^2+\frac{r}{2}\stackrel{}{\phi }^2+\frac{g}{4N}(\stackrel{}{\phi }^2)^2\right]$$
(5)
where $`r<0`$, $`g>0`$ and $`V`$ is the volume of the system. We will be interested in processes where the system is initially in the equilibrium ($`\gamma =0`$) infinite temperature state with expectations

$$\{\begin{array}{cc}<\phi ^\alpha (\stackrel{}{x},0)>=0\hfill & \\ <\phi ^\alpha (\stackrel{}{x},0)\phi ^\beta (\stackrel{}{x}^{},0)>=\mathrm{\Delta }_0\delta _{\alpha \beta }\delta (\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}^{})\hfill & \end{array}$$
(6)
and then is suddenly put in contact with a heat bath at temperature $`T`$, and subjected to the shear flow. $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ is a constant.

In the large-N limit  the equation of motion for the Fourier transform $`\phi ^\alpha (\stackrel{}{k},t)=_Vd^dx\phi ^\alpha (\stackrel{}{x},t)\mathrm{exp}(i\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{x})`$ takes the linear form

$$\frac{\phi ^\alpha (\stackrel{}{k},t)}{t}\gamma k_x\frac{\phi ^\alpha (\stackrel{}{k},t)}{k_y}=\mathrm{\Gamma }[k^2+I(t)]\phi ^\alpha (\stackrel{}{k},t)+\eta ^\alpha (\stackrel{}{k},t)$$
(7)
where

$`\eta ^\alpha (\stackrel{}{k},t)=0`$ (8)
$`\eta ^\alpha (\stackrel{}{k},t)\eta ^\beta (\stackrel{}{k}^{},t^{})=2T\delta _{\alpha \beta }\mathrm{\Gamma }V\delta _{\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{k}^{}}\delta (tt^{})`$ (9)
and the function

$$I(t)=r+\frac{g}{N}<\stackrel{}{\phi }^2(\stackrel{}{x},t)>$$
(10)
has to be calculated self-consistently. The quantity $`<\stackrel{}{\phi }^2(\stackrel{}{x},t)>`$ can be expressed as

$$\frac{1}{N}<\stackrel{}{\phi }^2(\stackrel{}{x},t)>=\frac{1}{V}\underset{\stackrel{}{k}}{}C(\stackrel{}{k},t)$$
(11)
where the structure factor

$$C(\stackrel{}{k},t)=\frac{1}{NV}<\stackrel{}{\phi }(\stackrel{}{k},t)\stackrel{}{\phi }(\stackrel{}{k},t)>$$
(12)
is solution of the equation

$$\frac{C(\stackrel{}{k},t)}{t}\gamma k_x\frac{C(\stackrel{}{k},t)}{k_y}=2\mathrm{\Gamma }[k^2+I(t)]C(\stackrel{}{k},t)+2\mathrm{\Gamma }T.$$
(13)
The momentum sum in Eq. (11) extends up to a phenomenological ultraviolet cut-off $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$.

## III Stationary properties

Letting $`C(\stackrel{}{k},t)/t=0`$ in Eq. (13), and setting $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1`$, the stationary form of the structure factor reads

$$C(\stackrel{}{k})=2T_0^{\mathrm{}}e^{2_0^z𝒦^2(t^{})𝑑t^{}2z\xi _{}^2}𝑑z,$$
(14)
where

$$\stackrel{}{𝒦}(s)=\stackrel{}{k}+\gamma sk_x\stackrel{}{e}_y$$
(15)
and

$$\xi _{}^2=\underset{t\mathrm{}}{lim}I(t)=r+\frac{g}{V}\underset{\stackrel{}{k}}{}C(\stackrel{}{k}).$$
(16)
This quantity plays the role of a transverse correlation length, because the modes of $`C(\stackrel{}{k})`$ with $`k_x=0`$ take the usual Ornstein-Zernike form

$$C(k_x=0,\stackrel{}{k}_{})=\frac{T}{k_{}^2+\xi _{}^2}.$$
(17)
Inserting Eq. (14) into Eq. (16) one has

$$\xi _{}^2=r+\frac{g}{V}2T\underset{\stackrel{}{k}}{}_0^{\mathrm{}}e^{2_0^z𝒦^2(t^{})𝑑t^{}2z\xi _{}^2}𝑑z.$$
(18)
This equation can be conveniently solved separating the $`\stackrel{}{k}=0`$ term under the sum. Then, for very large volumes

$$\xi _{}^2=r+gTP(\xi _{}^2)+g\frac{T}{V\xi _{}^2}$$
(19)
where

$$P(\xi _{}^2)=2\frac{d^dk}{(2\pi )^d}e^{k^2/\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}_0^{\mathrm{}}e^{2_0^z𝒦^2(t^{})𝑑t^{}2z\xi _{}^2}𝑑z.$$
(20)
The existence of a microscopic lengthscale proportional to $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^1`$ corresponds to the presence of a microscopic relaxation time

$$\tau _M=(2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2)^1$$
(21)
which has to be compared with the shear flow timescale

$$\tau _s=\gamma ^1.$$
(22)
As usually, it is assumed  that the flow does not distort the structure of the system at microscopic level so that $`\tau _M\tau _s`$ and

$$A\frac{2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}{\gamma }1.$$
(23)
In the following we will concentrate on the particular cases $`d=2`$ and $`d=3`$. The function $`P(x)`$ is a non negative monotonically decreasing function with the maximum value at $`x=0`$. It is related through Eq. (76) to the function $`f^L(x)`$ calculated in Appendix A and, from Eqs. (86,97), its value at $`x=0`$ is given by

$$P(0)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{1}{4\pi }(\mathrm{ln}(\sqrt{12}A)+\mathrm{ln}2)\hfill & ,d=2\hfill \\ \frac{1}{2(2\pi )^{3/2}}(\sqrt{\gamma A}\mathrm{\Gamma }^2(3/4)\frac{\sqrt{\gamma }}{\sqrt{2\pi }3^{1/4}})\hfill & ,d=3\hfill \end{array}$$
(24)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(3/4)`$ is the Gamma function evaluated at $`3/4`$. By graphical analysis one can easily show that Eq.(19) admits a solution with a finite value of $`\xi _{}^2`$ for all $`T`$. However, there exists a critical value of the temperature $`T_c(\gamma )`$ defined by

$$r+gT_c(\gamma )P(0)=0$$
(25)
such that for $`T>T_c(\gamma )`$ the solution is independent of the volume, while for $`TT_c(\gamma )`$ it does depend on $`V`$. From Eqs. (24,25) one has

$$T_c(\gamma )=\{\begin{array}{cc}(4\pi M_0^2)/\mathrm{ln}(A),d=2\hfill & \\ T_c(\gamma =0)[1\mathrm{\Gamma }^2(3/4)3^{1/4}\sqrt{2\pi /A}]^1,d=3\hfill & \end{array}$$
(26)
with $`M_0^2=r/g`$ and $`T_c(\gamma =0)=4M_0^2\pi ^{3/2}/\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. Notice that the effect of the flow is to increase the value of the critical temperature with respect to the case with $`\gamma =0`$ , according to $`T_c(\gamma )\mathrm{ln}\gamma `$ in $`d=2`$ and $`T_c(\gamma )T_c(0)\sqrt{\gamma }`$ in $`d=3`$. In $`d=2`$ this produces a qualitative difference because a phase-transition occurs at a finite temperature, differently from the unsheared case.

Finally, concerning the behaviour of the transverse correlation length, above $`T_c(\gamma )`$ with $`[T_FT_c(\gamma )]/T_c(\gamma )1`$, from Eqs. (19,20) and the expression of $`f^L`$ calculated in Appendix A (Eqs. (85,96)), one finds

$$\xi _{}^2=M_0^2\left(\frac{TT_c(\gamma )}{T_c(\gamma )}\right)\left(TA_3+1/g\right)^1d=3$$
(27)
$$\xi _{}^2|\mathrm{log}(\xi _{}^2)|=\frac{M_0^2}{TB_2}\left(\frac{TT_c(\gamma )}{T_c(\gamma )}\right)d=2$$
(28)
where $`A_3`$ and $`B_2`$ are defined in Appendix A. Hence, for the exponent $`\nu `$ defined by $`\xi _{}(\frac{TT_c(\gamma )}{T_c(\gamma )})^\nu `$ one finds $`\nu =1/2`$, with logarithmic corrections for $`d=2`$. At $`T_c(\gamma )`$, one has $`\xi _{}^21/\sqrt{V}`$ in $`d=3`$ and $`\xi _{}^2|\mathrm{log}(\xi _{}^2)|1/V`$ for $`d=2`$. The behaviour of $`\xi _{}`$ for $`TT_c(\gamma )`$ is shown in Fig.1.

For fixed $`\gamma `$, $`\xi _{}`$ decreases by increasing the temperature. Indeed this is expected because coherence is suppressed by thermal fluctuations. The role of $`\gamma `$ is more subtle. Naively one would expect that increasing $`\gamma `$ produces a smaller $`\xi _{}`$, because coherent island are washed away by the flow. However it must be also considered that $`\gamma `$ raises the critical temperature $`T_c(\gamma )`$. Hence, for fixed $`T`$, larger values of $`\gamma `$ make $`[TT_c(\gamma )]/T_c(\gamma )`$ smaller, the system gets closer to the critical point and the coherence length is increased. This second effect competes with the former and produces a net increase of $`\xi _{}`$ with $`\gamma `$. However, by changing $`\gamma `$ and $`T`$ in order to mantain a constant distance from criticality, namely keeping $`[TT_c(\gamma )]/T_c(\gamma )`$ fixed, the second effect is suppressed and one sees that, indeed, $`\xi _{}`$ is reduced by the flow (see inset of Fig. 1). For small $`[TT_c(\gamma )]/T_c(\gamma )`$ the power law behaviour (27) is observed. Finally, for large temperatures, $`\xi _{}`$ becomes $`\gamma `$-independent, because the de-coherence produced by thermal fluctuations prevails over shear effects.

Finally, turning to the phase $`T<T_c(\gamma )`$, the transverse correlation length is given by $`\xi _{}^2=T/(M^2V)`$ where

$$M=M_0\sqrt{1\frac{T}{T_c(\gamma )}}$$
(29)
is the analogue of the spontaneous magnetization in equilibrium.

## IV Dynamical solution

We will solve the model at asymptotic times in the case of quenching processes with initial conditions given by (6). From now on we will take the infinite volume limit. The formal solution of Eq. (13) is given by

$$C(\stackrel{}{k},t)=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_0}{y(t)}e^{2_0^t𝑑u𝒦^2(u)}e^{k^2/\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}+\frac{2T}{y(t)}_0^te^{2_0^{tz}𝑑u𝒦^2(u)}e^{k^2/\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}y(z)𝑑z$$
(30)
where

$$y(t)=\mathrm{exp}\left(2_0^t[r+gS(t^{})]𝑑t^{}\right)$$
(31)
and, from Eq. (11)

$$S(t)=\underset{V\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{1}{N}\stackrel{}{\phi }^2(\stackrel{}{x},t)=\underset{V\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{1}{V}\underset{\stackrel{}{k}}{}C(\stackrel{}{k},t)=\frac{d^dk}{(2\pi )^d}e^{k^2/\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}C(\stackrel{}{k},t).$$
(32)
Then, defining $`f(t)`$ as

$$f(t)\frac{d^dk}{(2\pi )^d}e^{2_0^t[𝒦^2(z)]𝑑zk^2/\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}$$
(33)
$$=(8\pi )^{d/2}(t+1/2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2)^{d/2}2\left(4\frac{\gamma ^2t^4}{(t+1/(2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2)^2)}+\frac{4}{3}\frac{\gamma ^2t^3}{t+1/(2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2)}\right)^{1/2}$$
(34)
one has

$$S(t)=\frac{1}{y(t)}\left(\mathrm{\Delta }_0f(t)+2T_0^tf(tt^{})y(t^{})𝑑t^{}\right).$$
(35)
We observe that the correction induced by the flow in Eq. (34) is independent on the dimensionality of the system and that, in absence of flow , the expected behaviour $`f(t)(8\pi t)^{d/2}`$ is recovered.

From Eqs. (31,35), one obtains the integro-differential equation

$$\frac{dy(t)}{dt}=2y(t)(r+gS(t))=2y(t)r+2g\left(\mathrm{\Delta }_0f(t)+2T_0^tf(tt^{})y(t^{})𝑑t^{}\right)$$
(36)
that can be solved introducing Laplace transforms denoted by $`f^L(s)=_0^{\mathrm{}}f(t)e^{st}𝑑t`$ and assuming that $`y^L(s)`$, the Laplace transform of $`y(t)`$, is well defined, as it will be verified a posteriori.

Eq. (36) implies that $`y^L(s)`$ can be expressed in terms of $`f^L(s)`$ through the equation

$$y^L(s)=\frac{1+2\mathrm{\Delta }_0f^L(s)}{s2r4gTf^L(s)}.$$
(37)
The function $`f^L(s)`$ has been calculated in Appendix A. Then, from Eq. (37), inverting the Laplace transform (see Appendix B for details), the function $`y(t)`$ can be obtained. For $`t\tau _s`$, $`y(t)`$ behaves as

d=2

$$y(t)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{1}{2B_2T}(\frac{1}{2}+\frac{M_0^2\mathrm{\Delta }_0}{2T_c(\gamma )})\frac{1}{\mathrm{log}(2\xi _{}^2)}e^{2\xi _{}^2t}\hfill & T>T_c(\gamma )\hfill \\ \frac{1}{2B_2T_c}(\frac{1}{2}+\frac{M_0^2\mathrm{\Delta }_0}{2T_c(\gamma )})\frac{1}{\mathrm{log}t}\hfill & T=T_c(\gamma )\hfill \\ \frac{B_2}{M^4}(T+\mathrm{\Delta }_0M_0^2)t^2\hfill & T<T_c(\gamma )\hfill \end{array}$$
(38)
d=3

$$y(t)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{1}{2}e^{2\xi _{}^2t}\frac{1+M_0^2\mathrm{\Delta }_0/T_c(\gamma )}{1+4T_c(\gamma )A_3}\hfill & T>T_c(\gamma )\hfill \\ \frac{1}{2}\frac{1+M_0^2\mathrm{\Delta }_0/T_c}{1+4T_c(\gamma )A_3}\hfill & T=T_c(\gamma )\hfill \\ \frac{3}{4}\frac{1}{\sqrt{\pi }}\frac{B_3}{M^4}(T+\mathrm{\Delta }_0M_0^2)t^{5/2}\hfill & T<T_c(\gamma )\hfill \end{array}$$
(39)
where $`M`$ is given in Eq. (29), $`\xi _{}`$ and $`T_c(\gamma )`$ are given in Eqs.(26,27,28) and the parameters $`A_3,B_2,B_3`$ are defined in Appendix A. Eqs. (38,39) hold for $`t>\xi _{}^2`$ in the high temperature phase $`T>T_c(\gamma )`$ and for $`t\tau _s`$ when $`TT_c(\gamma )`$.

## V Autocorrelation function

In this Section we analyze the asymptotic behaviour of the autocorrelation function

$$D(t,t^{})=\frac{d^dk}{(2\pi )^d}\frac{d^dk^{}}{(2\pi )^d}𝒟(\stackrel{}{k},t;\stackrel{}{k}^{},t^{})e^{k^2/2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}e^{k^2/2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}$$
(40)
where the correlator

$$𝒟(\stackrel{}{k},t;\stackrel{}{k}^{},t^{})=<\phi (\stackrel{}{k},t)\phi (\stackrel{}{k}^{},t^{})>$$
(41)
satisfies the equation

$$\frac{𝒟(\stackrel{}{k},t;\stackrel{}{k}^{},t^{})}{t}\gamma k_x\frac{𝒟(\stackrel{}{k},t;\stackrel{}{k}^{},t^{})}{k_y}=[k^2+gS(t)+r]𝒟(\stackrel{}{k},t;\stackrel{}{k}^{},t^{})$$
(42)
with initial condition $`𝒟(\stackrel{}{k},t^{};\stackrel{}{k}^{},t^{})=C(\stackrel{}{k}^{},t^{})\delta (\stackrel{}{k}+\stackrel{}{k}^{})`$ and $`tt^{}`$.

The function $`D(t,t^{})`$ is calculated in Appendix D using Eqs. (38,39) for $`y(t)`$. Here we discuss the results in the three cases $`T>T_c(\gamma )`$, $`T=T_c(\gamma )`$, and $`T<T_c(\gamma )`$.

$`𝐓>𝐓_𝐜(\gamma )`$

In the regime $`t^{}>\xi _{}^2`$ Eqs.(129,131) show that the correlation function becomes the TTI quantity

$$D(t,t^{})D_{st}(\tau ,\xi _{})=\frac{4T}{(8\pi )^{d/2}}_{\tau /2}^{\mathrm{}}e^{2\xi _{}^2y}(y+1/2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2)^{d/2}\frac{1}{\sqrt{4+\frac{1}{3}\gamma ^2y^2+\frac{\gamma ^2}{2}\tau ^2\left(1\frac{\tau ^2}{8y^2}\right)}}𝑑y$$
(43)
with $`\tau =tt^{}`$. This implies that $`\xi _{}^2`$ is the characteristic relaxation time of fluctuations above the critical temperature.

$`𝐓=𝐓_𝐜(\gamma )`$

At the critical temperature, due to Eqs.(132,134), $`D(t,t^{})`$ tends, for $`t^{}\tau _s`$ (Eq. (22)), to the form $`D_{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})`$, namely

$$D(t,t^{})D_{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})=\frac{4T}{(8\pi )^{d/2}}_{\tau /2}^{\mathrm{}}(y+1/2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2)^{d/2}\frac{1}{\sqrt{4+\frac{1}{3}\gamma ^2y^2+\frac{\gamma ^2}{2}\tau ^2\left(1\frac{\tau ^2}{8y^2}\right)}}𝑑y.$$
(44)
Then one has TTI again but, for large $`\tau `$, $`D_{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})`$ decays as a power law $`D_{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})\tau ^{d/2}`$, implying the absence of a characteristic relaxation time, as usual at criticality. Notice that the shear has the effect of increasing the exponent of the power law decay with respect to the value $`(d2)/2`$ of the undriven case. In other terms, the flow tends to decorrelate faster the system.

$`𝐓<𝐓_𝐜(\gamma )`$

In this case there are two time regimes of interest:

i) short time separation: $`t^{}\mathrm{},\frac{\tau }{t^{}}0`$ (Quasi-stationary regime)

ii) large time separation: $`t^{}\mathrm{},\frac{\tau }{t^{}}\mathrm{}`$ (Aging regime).

In the time sector i), from Eqs.(143) one has

$$D(t,t^{})=M^2+D_{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})$$
(45)
where $`D_{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})`$ is the same time translational invariant quantity found at $`T=T_c(\gamma )`$, Eq. (44).

On the other hand, in the limit ii), from Eq. (144), one gets

$$D(t,t^{})=D_{ag}(t/t^{})=M^2\left(\frac{t^{}}{t}\right)^{\frac{d+2}{4}}(1+t^{}/t)^{\frac{d+2}{2}}\frac{2^{\frac{d+2}{2}}}{\sqrt{4\frac{2(1t^{}/t)^3}{1+t^{}/t}3\frac{(2(1t^{}/t)^2)^2}{(1+t^{}/t)^2}}}.$$
(46)
Notice the dependence of $`D_{ag}`$ on the ratio $`t/t^{}`$ alone, as usual in slowly relaxing aging systems. Furthermore, for $`t/t^{}1`$, a generalization of the Fisher-Huse exponent $`\lambda `$ defined by

$$D(t,t^{})(t^{}/t)^\lambda $$
(47)
gives

$$\lambda =\frac{d+2}{4}.$$
(48)
The structure of the autocorrelation function provided in Eqs. (46,45) for large $`t^{}`$ allows its splitting into the sum of two distinct contributions

$$D(t,t^{})=D_{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})+D_{ag}(t/t^{}).$$
(49)
In the regime i) $`D_{ag}(t/t^{})`$ remains fixed to its initial value $`D_{ag}(1)=M^2`$, while $`D_{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})`$ decays to zero. This makes Eq. (49) consistent with Eq. (45). Conversely, in the regime ii), $`D_{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})`$ has already decayed to zero and the whole time dependence is carried by $`D_{ag}(t/t^{})`$, providing again consistence between Eqs. (49) and (46).

This whole pattern of behaviours of $`D(t,t^{})`$ is closely reminiscent of what is known for the system without shear . In that case it was shown that this features reflect an underlying structure of the order parameter field which, in the late stage of the dynamics of a quench below $`T_c`$, can be decomposed into two statistically indipendent stochastic components, $`\phi (\stackrel{}{x},t)=\psi (\stackrel{}{x},t)+\sigma (\stackrel{}{x},t)`$, responsible for the stationary and aging part of the autocorrelation function respectively, as discussed in . In the present case, by proceeding along the lines of the case $`\gamma =0`$, it is straightforward to show that the same splitting of the order parameter field can be explicitly exhibited, which accounts for the structure of $`D(t,t^{})`$ discussed above; we refer to  for further details. In systems with a scalar order parameter  the physical interpretation of this decomposition is the following: given a configuration at a time well inside the late stage scaling regime, one can distinguish degrees of freedom $`\psi (\stackrel{}{x},t)`$ in the bulk of domains from those $`\sigma (\stackrel{}{x},t)`$ pertaining to the interfaces. The first ones are driven by thermal fluctuations and behave locally as in equilibrium; the second ones retain memory of the noisy initial condition, and produce the aging behaviour. For large-$`N`$, where topological defects are unstable and domains are not well defined, the recognition of the physical degrees of freedom associated to $`\psi (\stackrel{}{x},t)`$ and $`\sigma (\stackrel{}{x},t)`$ is not straightforward as for scalar systems. Nevertheless, the possibility of splitting of the order parameter also in this case indicates that the same fundamental property is shared by systems with different $`N`$.

The overall behaviour of the autocorrelation function is shown in figure 2, for different $`t^{}`$. This figure shows also a comparison with the case $`\gamma =0`$. The pattern is qualitatively similar in both cases: Initially a fast decay to a plateau value is observed. This is due to the vanishing of $`D_{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})`$ in the quasi-stationary regime while $`D_{ag}(t/t^{})`$ remains constant $`D_{ag}(t/t^{})M^2`$ (this value corresponds to the height of the plateau in the figure). Notice that curves with different $`t^{}`$ collapse in this regime, due to the stationarity of $`D_{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})`$. For longer times, when $`tt^{}t^{}`$, the autocorrelation function departs from the plateau value, because also $`D_{ag}(t/t^{})`$ starts to fall off, and a pronounced dependence on the waiting time $`t^{}`$, or aging, is observed. After the stationary regime is over (around $`\tau 10`$) also $`\gamma `$ plays an important role. Actually one observes that the decay of $`D_{ag}(t/t^{})`$ is promoted by the shear, as expected because correlations are washed out by the flow. Indeed, considering the case with $`t^{}=10^5`$, for example, $`D(t,t^{})`$ decays from one to the value $`10^3`$ in a time $`\tau `$ of order $`10^9`$ for $`\gamma =0`$ and in a time of order $`310^7`$ for $`\gamma =0.1`$. For long times this effect results in the larger Fisher-Huse exponent (48) with respect to the undriven case, where $`\lambda =d/4`$ .

## VI Linear Response

In order to calculate the response of the field to an external perturbation $`\stackrel{}{h}(\stackrel{}{x},t)`$ we add to the original hamiltonian the term $`\delta =𝑑x^d\stackrel{}{h}(\stackrel{}{x},t)\stackrel{}{\phi }(\stackrel{}{x},t)`$. The Langevin equation (1) for a generic component becomes

$$\frac{\phi ^\alpha (\stackrel{}{x},t)}{t}+\stackrel{}{}(\phi ^\alpha (\stackrel{}{x},t)\stackrel{}{v})=\frac{\delta [\stackrel{}{\phi }]}{\delta \phi ^\alpha (\stackrel{}{x},t)}+h^\alpha (\stackrel{}{x},t)+\eta ^\alpha (\stackrel{}{x},t).$$
(50)
The two-time response function is defined as

$$(\stackrel{}{k},t;\stackrel{}{k}^{},t^{})=(2\pi )^d\frac{\delta <\phi ^\alpha (\stackrel{}{k},t)>}{\delta h^\alpha (\stackrel{}{k}^{},t^{})}|_{\{h(\stackrel{}{k}^{},t^{})=0\}}$$
(51)
with $`tt^{}`$. Here, due to rotational symmetry, a generic component of the order parameter can be considered and vectorial indices can be dropped. Using the properties $`<\phi ^\alpha (\stackrel{}{k},0)>=0`$ and $`<\eta ^\alpha (\stackrel{}{k},t)>=0`$ we get

$$(\stackrel{}{k},t;\stackrel{}{k}^{},t^{})=(2\pi )^d\delta \left(\stackrel{}{𝒦}(tt^{})+\stackrel{}{k}^{}\right)\sqrt{\frac{y(t^{})}{y(t)}}e^{_0^{tt^{}}𝑑u𝒦^2(u)}$$
(52)
where the function $`y(t)`$ is defined in Eq. (31). The autoresponse function can be also introduced as

$`R(t,t^{})`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^dk}{(2\pi )^d}\frac{d^dk^{}}{(2\pi )^d}(\stackrel{}{k},t;\stackrel{}{k}^{},t^{})e^{k^2/2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}e^{k^2/2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}}`$ (55)
$`=\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{y(t^{})}{y(t)}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^dk}{(2\pi )^d}e^{_0^{tt^{}}𝑑u𝒦^2(u)}e^{(k^2+\frac{d(\gamma )}{2})/\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}}`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{2^{1d/2}}{(4\pi )^{d/2}}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{y(t^{})}{y(t)}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{tt^{}}{2}}+\tau _M\right)^{d/2}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{4+\frac{4}{3}\gamma ^2\frac{(tt^{})^3}{tt^{}+2\tau _M}\gamma ^2\frac{(tt^{})^4}{(tt^{}+2\tau _M)^2}}}}`$
where $`d(\gamma )=𝒦^2(tt^{})k^2`$.

Computing the integrated response one obtains

$$\chi (t,t_w)_{t_w}^tR(t,t^{})𝑑t^{}=\frac{2^{1d/2}}{(4\pi )^{d/2}}\frac{1}{\sqrt{y(t)}}_0^\tau 𝑑z\sqrt{y(tz)}\frac{(\frac{z}{2}+\tau _M)^{d/2}}{\sqrt{4+\frac{1}{3}\gamma ^2z^2}}$$
(56)
where we have introduced the variables $`z=tt^{}`$, $`\tau =tt_w`$ and neglected the two asymptotically irrelevant terms containing $`\tau _M`$ in the square root in the last line of Eq. (55). We will evaluate this function in the asymptotic regime $`t_w\mathrm{}`$ using the large time behaviour of $`y(t)`$ given in Eqs. (38,39).

$`𝐓>𝐓_𝐜(\gamma )`$

Inserting Eqs. (38,39) in Eq. (56), the response function reads

$$\chi (t,t_w)=\chi _{st}(\tau ,\xi _{})=\frac{2}{(4\pi )^{d/2}}_0^\tau 𝑑ze^{2\xi _{}^2z/2}\frac{(z+2\tau _M)^{d/2}}{\sqrt{4+\frac{1}{3}\gamma ^2z^2}}$$
(57)
which is a time translational invariant quantity, as expected, because the system reaches a stationary state.

$`𝐓=𝐓_𝐜(\gamma )`$

For $`t_w\tau _s`$ one has

$$\chi (t,t_w)=\chi _{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})=\frac{2}{(4\pi )^{d/2}}_0^\tau 𝑑z\frac{(z+2\tau _M)^{d/2}}{\sqrt{4+\frac{1}{3}\gamma ^2z^2}}$$
(58)
showing that also at criticality the response function is time translational invariant.

After an integration by parts, the function $`\chi _{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})`$ can be expressed in $`d=3`$ in terms of the $`{}_{2}{}^{}F_{1}^{}`$ hypergeometric function as

$`\chi _{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^{3/2}}}\left[\mathrm{\Lambda }\left(1/2+(\mathrm{\Lambda }^2\tau +1)^{1/2}(4+1/3\gamma ^2\tau ^2)^{1/2}\right)\right]`$ (59)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma ^2}{9}}\tau ^{3/2}\text{ }_2F_1[1/2,3/4,7/4,\gamma ^2\tau ^2/12]`$ (60)
while, in $`d=2`$, one gets

$`\chi _{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})={\displaystyle \frac{1/(2\pi )}{\sqrt{1+1/(3A^2)}}}[\mathrm{log}(\mathrm{\Lambda }^2\tau +1)+\mathrm{log}(1+\sqrt{1+1/(3A^2)})`$ (62)
$`\mathrm{log}(1+\sqrt{1+1/(3A^2)}\sqrt{1+1/3(\gamma \tau /2)^2}\gamma \tau /(6A))]`$
In particular, for $`\tau \tau _s`$, one has the limiting behaviour

$$\chi _{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})=\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{1}{2\pi }\mathrm{log}(\mathrm{\Lambda }^2\tau +1)d=2\hfill & \\ \frac{M_0^2}{T_c(\gamma )}\left(1\frac{1}{\sqrt{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2\tau +1}}\right)d=3\hfill & \end{array}$$
(63)
while

$$\chi _{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})=\frac{M_0^2}{T_c(2\gamma )}$$
(64)
in the opposite limit $`\tau \tau _s`$.

$`𝐓<𝐓_𝐜(\gamma )`$

For $`T<T_c(\gamma )`$ the integrated response function is given by

$$\chi (t,t_w)=\frac{2}{(4\pi )^{d/2}}_0^\tau 𝑑u\frac{(u+1/(\mathrm{\Lambda }^2))^{d/2}}{\sqrt{4+\gamma ^2u^2/3}}(1u/t)^{(d+2)/4}.$$
(65)
The term $`(1u/t)^{(d+2)/4}`$ can be expanded in powers of $`u/t`$ and integrated term by term. It can be shown that the first contribution is dominant for $`t_w\tau _s`$ and behaves as $`\chi _{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})`$ in Eq. (58). Then in the limit $`t_w\tau _s`$ the response function becomes TTI also in the low temperature phase.

It is interesting to study the behaviour of the first correction to this result, namely the next term appairing in the power series in $`u/t`$ discussed above. The dependence on the two times of this quantity, that will be denoted as $`\chi _{ag}(t,t_w)`$, can be factorized as $`\chi _{ag}(t,t_w)=t^1b(\tau )`$. Here $`b(\tau )`$ is a TTI function that, starting from zero at $`\tau =0`$, saturates to a constant value for $`\tau >\tau _s`$. In the regime $`\tau >\tau _s`$, therefore, one has $`\chi _{ag}(t,t_w)t^1`$. In conclusion, taking into account also this first correction, it results that $`\chi (t,t_w)\chi _{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})+\chi _{ag}(t,t_w)`$ and, recalling the behaviour of $`\chi _{ag}(t,t_w)`$, one concludes that for large $`t`$ the second term is always negligible with respect to the first, as anticipated after Eq. (65)

A similar structure, with a stationary and an aging part, is also found in the case with $`\gamma =0`$. However, in that case, one finds a similar result, namely $`\chi _{ag}(t,t_w)=t^1b(\tau )`$ and the properties of $`b(\tau )`$ discussed above, only above the upper critical dimension $`d_U=4`$. Instead, below $`d_U`$ it is $`\chi _{ag}(t,t_w)=t_w^aB(t/t_w)`$, for $`\tau /t_w>1`$, with $`a=(d2)/2`$. Notice that this form implies that $`\chi _{ag}(t,t_w)`$ does not vanish for large $`t`$ at the lower critical dimension $`d=2`$. A similar pattern is also found for scalar systems .

When shear is applied the system behaves as in the case with $`\gamma =0`$ and $`dd_U`$. This is due to the fact that the mathematical structure of the solution of the model with applied flow in dimension $`d`$ is similar to the structure of the solution without shear in an increased dimensionality $`d+2`$. This can be checked, for instance, from the behaviour of the function $`y(t)`$ of Eqs. (38,39) as compared to the form without shear . This phenomenon raises the effective dimensionality at or above $`d_U=4`$ for the cases $`d=2,3`$ considered in this paper.

## VII Fluctuation-Dissipation relation

In this Section we will discuss the out of equilibrium generalization of the FDT, namely the relation between $`D(t,t_w)`$ and $`\chi (t,t_w)`$ in the large $`t_w`$ regime.

$`𝐓>𝐓_𝐜(\gamma )`$

Let us first recall that in the case without shear, for times $`t_w`$ larger than the equilibration time, $`D(t,t_w)`$ and $`\chi (t,t_w)`$ become TTI quantities $`D(\tau )`$ and $`\chi (\tau )`$. Moreover, since the system attains an equilibrium state, standard FDT holds

$$T\chi (\tau )=D(\tau =0)D(\tau ).$$
(66)
The effect of the shear flow is to transfer energy to the system, and, also in the quench to a temperature above the critical point where TTI is obeyed, the equilibrium Gibbs state is never reached. Then the FDT does not hold and $`D(t,t_w)`$ and $`\chi (t,t_w)`$ do not satisfy an equation analogous to Eq. (66). The fact that $`D(t,t_w)=D_{st}(\tau ,\xi _{})`$ and $`\chi (t,t_w)=\chi _{st}(\tau ,\xi _{})`$ are TTI quantities implies that the dependence on the two times of $`\chi (t,t_w)`$ can still be accounted for through $`D(t,t_w)`$, yielding a non trivial relation $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }(D)`$ between $`\chi (t,t_w)`$ and $`D(t,t_w)`$. The fluctuation-dissipation plot, namely the relation $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }(D)`$, is shown in Fig. 3.

The plot follows the straight line (66) for small values of $`\tau `$, when $`\tau \tau _s`$. Recalling the discussion of Sec.II regarding local equilibrium one has that the system behaves as in equilibrium up to timescales of the order of the evolution time of the system which, in this case, is the flow timescale $`\tau _s`$.

For larger values of $`\tau `$ (smaller $`D`$) $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }(D)`$ deviates from the equilibrium form (66) due to the effects of shear. In particular, for $`TT_c(\gamma )`$ its asymptotic ($`\tau =\mathrm{}`$) value is $`T\stackrel{~}{\chi }(\tau ,\xi _{})M_0^2T/T_c(2\gamma )`$ (Eq. (64)) which is less than $`M_0^2M^2=M_0^2T/T_c(\gamma )`$, the value obtained from Eq. (66). From Eq. (64) it is readily seen that the relation between the response $`\chi (t,t_w;2\gamma )`$ of a system subjected to a shear flow with rate $`2\gamma `$, and the autocorrelation function $`D(t,t_w;\gamma )`$ of another system with shear rate $`\gamma `$, obeys Eq. (66) at large time ($`\gamma \tau >>1`$ ), namely

$$T\chi _{st}(\tau ,\xi _{};2\gamma )=D_{st}(0,\xi _{};\gamma )D_{st}(\tau ,\xi _{};\gamma ).$$
(67)
This symmetry of the theory is independent on the model parameters and is therefore particularly suited for comparison with other models and for experimental checks. Actually, the linearization of the equation of motion provided by the large-$`N`$ model is expected to provide reliable results above the critical temperature and we expect the relation (67) to be observed also in more realistic systems.

$`𝐓=𝐓_𝐜(\gamma )`$

At $`T=T_c(\gamma )`$ the fluctuation-dissipation plot is the same as for $`TT_c(\gamma )`$. In the following we will focus on the fluctuation-dissipation ratio

$$X(t,t^{})=T\frac{R(t,t^{})}{D(t,t^{})/t^{}}.$$
(68)
and, in particular, on its limiting value

$$X_{\mathrm{}}=\underset{t^{}\mathrm{}}{lim}\underset{t\mathrm{}}{lim}X(t,t^{})$$
(69)
In systems without drive this quantity takes the value $`X_{\mathrm{}}=1`$ for equilibrium systems while $`X_{\mathrm{}}=0`$ in the low temperature phase of coarsening systems with a non-vanishing critical temperature . For critical systems the value of $`X_{\mathrm{}}`$ has been computed for the random walk and the Gaussian model where the non trivial value $`X_{\mathrm{}}=1/2`$ is found . This quantity has been also computed for some coarsening systems at the lower critical dimension $`d_L`$, such as the X-Y model in $`d=2`$  and the Ising chain , where the same result $`X_{\mathrm{}}=1/2`$ is recovered. However, concerning systems quenched to the critical temperature above $`d_L`$, the value of $`X_{\mathrm{}}`$ turns out to possess a different value. Numerical simulations of the Ising model with heat bath dynamics in $`d=2`$ indicate that $`X_{\mathrm{}}0.26`$  and the exact solution  of the spherical model (that is equivalent to the large-$`N`$ model) gives

$$X_{\mathrm{}}=\frac{d2}{4}2<d<4$$
(70)
$$X_{\mathrm{}}=\frac{1}{2}d>4.$$
(71)
In  it is proposed that this quantity is a novel universal quantity of non-equilibrium critical dynamics.

Under the action of a shear flow, Eqs. (71) is obeyed both for $`d=2`$ and $`d=3`$, as we show below. Indeed, concentrating on the case $`d=3`$ for clarity, taking $`R(t,t^{})`$ from Eq. (55) (with $`y(t)=const`$) in the asymptotic limit $`tt^{}t^{}`$, and evaluating $`D/t^{}`$ from Eq. (44) one obtains

$$X_{\mathrm{}}=\frac{1}{2}.$$
(72)
It can be shown that the same result $`X_{\mathrm{}}=1/2`$ applies also in the case $`d=2`$. Then, with respect to the case $`\gamma =0`$ where Eqs. (70,71) hold, the effect of the flow is to shift by two the effective dimensionality of the system, as already discussed in the previous Section.

$`𝐓<𝐓_𝐜(\gamma )`$

Summarizing the results of the previous sections, in the regime $`t_w\tau _s`$ one has

$$D(t,t_w)=D_{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})+D_{ag}(t/t_w)$$
(73)
$$\chi (t,t_w)=\chi _{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{}).$$
(74)
Before discussing the behaviour of the flowing system it is useful to overview the behaviour without shear that is plotted in Fig. 4. In this case a structure like (73,74) is also found.

In the short time separation regime (see Sec. V), or stationary regime, $`D_{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})`$ decays from $`D_{st}(0,\mathrm{})=M_0^2M^2`$ to $`D_{st}(\tau t_w,\mathrm{})0`$ while $`D_{ag}(t/t_w)D_{ag}(1)=M^2`$ remains constant. Therefore, in this regime $`D(t,t_w)`$ ranges from $`M_0^2`$ down to $`M^2`$. $`T\chi _{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})`$ grows from zero to $`T\chi _{st}(\tau t_w,\mathrm{})M_0^2M^2`$ and is related to $`D_{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})`$ by the equilibrium FDT, Eq. (66). This gives rise to the straight line with negative slope on the right of Fig. 4. Notice that this line is nothing else than the fluctuation-dissipation plot of a system in the equilibrium state above $`T_c`$, shifted by the amount $`M^2`$ along the horizontal axis.

In the large time separation sector, or aging regime, $`D_{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})0`$ whereas $`D_{ag}(t/t_w)`$ decays from $`D_{ag}(1)=M^2`$ to zero for $`t/t_w`$ large. Hence the aging regime corresponds to the region $`0D(t,t_w)M^2`$ of the fluctuation-dissipation plot (Fig. 4). The response function stays constant $`T\chi (t,t_w)=M_0^2M^2`$ because the aging part of this quantity is negligible for large $`t_w`$. These behaviours account for the flat part on the left side of Fig. 4. Given this structure it is also clear that the whole time dependence of the response can be absorbed through $`D(t,t_w)`$, namely $`\chi (t,t_w)=\stackrel{~}{\chi }(D)`$, as proposed in Ref. .

Next we turn to the case with shear. In this situation, given Eqs. (73,74) and the behaviour of $`D_{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})`$, $`D_{ag}(t/t_w)`$ and $`\chi _{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})`$ obtained in Secs. V,VI (Eqs. (44,46,58)), most of the considerations discussed for $`\gamma =0`$ still apply. In particular in the short time separation regime $`D_{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})`$ decays from $`D_{st}(0,\mathrm{})=M_0^2M^2`$ to zero while $`D_{ag}(t/t_w)M^2`$ keeps staying constant. In this regime $`D(t,t_w)`$ ranges from $`M_0^2`$ down to $`M^2`$ and $`T\chi _{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})`$ grows from zero to its limiting value $`T\chi _{st}(\tau t_w,\mathrm{})`$. However, when shear is applied, the relation between $`\chi _{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})`$ and $`D_{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})`$ is not the equilibrium FDT (66) but, instead, the relation $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }(D)`$ of the case $`TT_c(\gamma )`$ discussed above (shifted by the amount $`M^2`$ along the $`D`$-axes, as for $`\gamma =0`$). Therefore, as discussed already for $`TT_c(\gamma )`$ in the stationary regime, one has both a region $`\tau <\tau _s`$ where standard FDT (66) holds (on the right of Fig. 4), and a time domain $`\tau _s<\tau <t_w`$ where the relation $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }(D)`$ deviates from the linear behaviour (66). Finally, for $`\tau >t_w`$ (namely $`D<M^2(\gamma )`$), the aging regime is explored with a flat fluctuation-dissipation plot.

The pattern of violation of the FDT discussed insofar for coarsening under shear flow can be compared with the behaviour of driven mean field models for glassy kinetics . In both cases the system without drive exhibits a phase transition at a critical temperature $`T_c`$ characterized by an aging dynamics below $`T_c`$, and a qualitativly similar behaviour of the autocorrelation function. However several differences occur between these systems when the drive is switched on, some of which are revealed by the fluctuation-dissipation relation. The most important difference is due to the fact that mean field glass models always attain asymptotically a stationary state, regardless of the temperature, while, as discussed in Secs. III,V, the model considered in this paper exibits an aging kinetics below a critical temperature even in the presence of shear. Furthermore, in glassy models, the fluctuation-dissipation relation $`\chi (D)`$ is a broken line for every temperature and the two slopes of these lines are associated to the existence of two well defined temperatures in the system, the bath temperature $`T`$ and the effective temperature $`T_{eff}`$ of the slow degrees of freedom. A similar behaviour is found in molecular dynamics simulations of binary Lennard-Jones mixture under shear flow . On the other hand, at least in the stationary state observed above $`T_c(\gamma )`$, the only one that can be compared with the time translational invariant states of the glassy case, the model considered here shows a more complex relation $`\chi (D)`$, as it can be clearly observed in the inset of Fig. 4. This suggests that, despite some qualitative similarities, coarsening systems under the action of an external drive behave quite differently from glassy systems and that the violation of the FDT is an efficient tool to detect it.

## VIII Conclusions

In this paper we have studied analytically the out of equilibrium kinetics of a solvable model for binary systems subjected to a uniform shear flow. Besides the relevance of this subject as a first step for a better comprehension of sheared two-component fluids, which has recently been by itself matter of intense theoretical and experimental interest, this model is particularly suited for investigating off-equilibrium systems under a general and wide perspective. Actually, the properties of non-equilibrium states are an important concern of modern statistical mechanics and many efforts have been devoted to widen our knowledges in this field. In particular, much interest has been payed to aging systems, namely systems which retain memory of the time $`t_w`$ elapsed since they have been brought out of equilibrium, such as glasses or spin glasses. The aging properties are usually extracted from the behaviour of the autocorrelation function $`D(t,t_w)`$ which carries an explicit dependence on both times, up to the longest observation scales. On the other hand, the so called driven systems, to which external energy is pumped from the outside, generally lose memory of the initial condition and, after a microscopic time, a time translational invariant state is entered, which, because of the external drive, is not an equilibrium one, in the Gibbs sense. It has been argued that an important piece of information on non-equilibrium states, both aging and stationary, is encoded into the linear response function to an external perturbation, and, in particular, in the so called off-equilibrium generalization of the FDT, the relation between the response function and $`D(t,t_w)`$. Hopefully, this non-equilibrium linear response theory, should bear the amount of relevant implications and the generality of the equilibrium case. However, nowadays, our understanding of this important issue is still incomplete and further investigations are necessary in order to deepen our insight.

The model we have studied in this paper is particularly suited for this analysis because it offers both a framework where exact calculations can be carried over and a rich phenomenology due to the presence of both stationary and aging off-equilibrium states. These two behaviours are separated by a phase transition at a critical temperature $`T_c(\gamma )`$ which increases with $`\gamma `$ and gives a transition also in $`d=2`$. We stress that this is a transition between non-equilibrium states. Nevertheless, in this model the existence of a non-equilibrium parameter $`\gamma `$ allows one to compare the properties of the transition with the well known equilibrium case with $`\gamma =0`$. In doing that, one discovers that a wealth of similarities exist greatly helping the analysis of what goes on out of equilibrium. In particular, in the low temperature phase, where the aging behaviour coexists with the drive, the autocorrelation function can be splitted into a stationary and an aging part, along the same lines as for $`\gamma =0`$. The former describes the correlation between fast degrees of freedom while the latter, which decays as a power law with a generalized Fisher-Huse exponent, is due to the slow variables responsible for the aging properties. This analysis allows a better comprehension of the violation of the FDT and the recognition that a mechanism very similar to that observed without shear is at work. This provides the basis for understanding why the fluctuation-dissipation plot of Fig.4, with the flat part characteristic of corsening systems, comes about also in sheared systems.

In aging systems without drive a definite progress in generalizing the FDT out of equilibrium has been achieved by realizing that certain fundamental properties of the system are encoded into the fluctuation-dissipation relation. A first step in this direction was made by interpreting $`T_{eff}=TX^1(C)`$ as an effective temperature of the system, different from that of the thermal bath. Furthermore, it was also shown by Franz, Mezard, Parisi and Peliti  that the relation between response and autocorrelation function bears informations on the properties of the equilibrium state towards which the system is evolving. These advances qualify the fluctuation-dissipation relation as a fundamental one also far from equilibrium, providing an important tool in this difficult field. However, a generalization of these concepts to off-equilibrium driven systems is lacking, particularly for the low temperature phase of the model considered here, where aging coexists with the drive. Further studies are therefore needed to discover if and which properties of the non-equilibrium state are encrypted into their fluctuation-dissipation relation.

## IX Appendix A: The Laplace transform of f(t)

In this Appendix we compute the Laplace transform of $`f(t)`$ defined as

$$f^L(s)=_0^{\mathrm{}}e^{ts}f(t)𝑑t$$
(75)
where $`f(t)`$ is given in Eq. (34). In doing so we will obtain also an explicit form for the quantity $`P(x)`$ defined in Eq. (20) due to the relation

$$P(x)=2f^L(2x).$$
(76)
This relation can be easily derived by inserting the expression (33) into Eq. (75) and comparing the result with the definition (20).

d=2

We first calculate the Laplace transform of the function $`f(t)`$ of Eq. (33) in $`d=2`$. It can be written as

$`f^L(s)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}e^{ts}f(t)𝑑t={\displaystyle \frac{A}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{e^{\frac{s}{\gamma }y}}{1+Ay}}\left(4{\displaystyle \frac{y^4A^2}{(1+Ay)^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{y^3A}{(1+Ay)}}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}𝑑y`$ (77)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^{\frac{s}{\gamma A}}}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle _{\frac{s}{\gamma A}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑z{\displaystyle \frac{e^z}{z}}\left(4{\displaystyle \frac{(z\gamma A/s1)^4s^2}{A^4\gamma ^2z^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{(z\gamma A/s1)^3s}{A^3\gamma z}}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}`$ (78)
where the variable $`z=s(1+Ay)/(\gamma A)`$ is introduced and $`A`$ is defined in Eq. (23). The last integral can be split into two pieces: The first is given by

$$\frac{e^{\frac{s}{\gamma A}}}{8\pi }_{\frac{s}{\gamma A}}^{\sqrt{12}s/\gamma }𝑑z\frac{e^z}{z}\frac{1}{\sqrt{1+h(z)}}$$
(79)
where the function

$$h(z)=\frac{(z\gamma A/s1)^3s^2}{A^4\gamma ^2z^2}\left(\frac{z\gamma A}{12s}+\frac{1}{4}\right)$$
(80)
can be shown to be less than one in the integration interval. Then the square root of Eq. (79) can be expanded as a power series and integrated term by term. The result is

$$_{\frac{s}{\gamma A}}^{\sqrt{12}s}𝑑z\frac{e^z}{z}\frac{1}{\sqrt{1+h(z)}}=\mathrm{ln}(\sqrt{12}A)+\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{r_n}{2n}\sqrt{12}\frac{s}{\gamma }\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{r_n}{2n+1}+𝒪(s^2,A^1)$$
(81)
with $`r_n=(1)^n(2n1)!!/(2n)!!`$. The other contribution to $`f^L(s)`$, neglecting all terms of order $`𝒪(s^2,A^1)`$, is given by

$$\frac{e^{\frac{s}{\gamma A}}}{8\pi }_{\frac{\sqrt{12}s}{\gamma }}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑z\frac{e^z}{z}\frac{1}{\sqrt{1+\frac{z^2\gamma ^2}{12s^2}}}.$$
(82)
Proceeding along the same lines as for the previous integral (79) and adding the result to expression (81) one finds

$`f^L(s)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi }}\left(\mathrm{ln}(\sqrt{12}A)+1+D_0+\sqrt{12}D_1{\displaystyle \frac{s}{\gamma }}+{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{12^{n+1/2}s^{2n+1}}{\gamma ^{2n+1}}}\left({\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{2n}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{k+1}}\right)\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{12}s}{\gamma }}\right)`$ (83)
$`+`$ $`𝒪(s^2,A^1)`$ (84)
where $`D_0=_{n=1}^{\mathrm{}}r_n\frac{(4n+1)}{2n(2n+1)}=\mathrm{ln}210.3068`$, $`D_1=𝒞2D_01.7296`$ with $`𝒞0.577216`$ being the Euler’s constant. Eq. (84) can be written more compactly as

$$f^L(s)\frac{M_0^2}{2T_c(\gamma )}A_2s+B_2s\mathrm{log}s$$
(85)
where only the first term in the series of Eq. (84) is retained and

$$f^L(0)=\frac{M_0^2}{2T_c(\gamma )}=\frac{1}{8\pi }(\mathrm{ln}(\sqrt{12}A)+\mathrm{ln}2)$$
(86)
$$A_2=\frac{\sqrt{12}}{8\pi }\gamma ^1(D_1\mathrm{ln}(\sqrt{12/\gamma }));B_2=\frac{\sqrt{12}}{8\pi }\gamma ^1.$$
(87)
d=3

Similarly to the case $`d=2`$, starting from Eq. (34), $`f^L(s)`$ can be written as

$`f_3^L(s)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{\gamma }A^{3/2}}{4(2\pi )^{3/2}}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{e^{\frac{s}{\gamma }y}}{(1+Ay)^{3/2}}}\left(4{\displaystyle \frac{y^4A^2}{(1+Ay)^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{y^3A}{(1+Ay)}}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}𝑑y`$ (88)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^{\frac{s}{\gamma A}}}{4(2\pi )^{3/2}}}\sqrt{s}{\displaystyle _{\frac{s}{\gamma A}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑z{\displaystyle \frac{e^z}{z^{3/2}}}\left(4{\displaystyle \frac{(z\gamma A/s1)^4s^2}{A^4\gamma ^2z^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{(z\gamma A/s1)^3s}{A^3\gamma z}}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}`$ (89)
The last expression can be again calculated splitting the integration interval. A first contribution comes from the term

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{s}}{2}}{\displaystyle _{\frac{s}{\gamma A}}^{\sqrt{12}s/\gamma }}𝑑z{\displaystyle \frac{e^z}{z^{3/2}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{1+h(z)}}}`$ $`=`$ (90)
$`\sqrt{A\gamma }+{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{\gamma }}{2(12)^{1/4}}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{r_n}{2n1/2}}`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{12^{1/4}}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{s}{\sqrt{\gamma }}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{r_n}{2n+1/2}}+𝒪(s^2,A^{1/2}).`$ (91)
Adding this contribution to the other term

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{s}}{2}}{\displaystyle _{\frac{\sqrt{12}s}{\gamma }}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑z{\displaystyle \frac{e^z}{z^{3/2}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{1+\frac{z^2\gamma ^2}{12s^2}}}}={\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{\gamma }}{2(12)^{1/4}}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{r_n}{2n+3/2}}`$ $``$ (92)
$`12^{1/4}{\displaystyle \frac{s}{2\sqrt{\gamma }}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{r_n}{2n+1/2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1/2)}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\left({\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{2n+1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{2}{2k+1}}\right)s^{2n+3/2}{\displaystyle \frac{12^{n+1/2}}{\gamma ^{2n+1}}}`$ $`+𝒪(s^2,A^{1/2})`$ (93)
one obtains

$`f^L(s)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4(2\pi )^{3/2}}}\left[\sqrt{\gamma A}+{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{\gamma }}{12^{1/4}}}T_012^{1/4}{\displaystyle \frac{s}{\sqrt{\gamma }}}T_1+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1/2)}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\left({\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{2n+1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{2}{2k+1}}\right)s^{2n+3/2}{\displaystyle \frac{12^{n+1/2}}{\gamma ^{2n+1}}}\right]`$ (95)
$`+𝒪(s^2,A^{1/2})`$
where $`T_0=_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}r_n\frac{2n+1/2}{(2n+3/2)(2n1/2)}0.847`$, $`T_1=_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}r_n\frac{1}{2n+1/2}1.8541`$. The behaviour for small $`s`$ is the only relevant for the asymptotic dynamics, as discussed below Eq. (105). This is given by

$$f^L(s)\frac{M_0^2}{2T_c(\gamma )}A_3s+B_3s^{3/2}$$
(96)
with

$$f^L(0)=\frac{M_0^2}{2T_c(\gamma )}=\frac{1}{4(2\pi )^{3/2}}(\sqrt{\gamma A}+\frac{\sqrt{\gamma }}{12^{1/4}}T_0)$$
(97)
$$A_3=\frac{12^{1/4}}{4(2\pi )^{3/2}}\frac{T_1}{\sqrt{\gamma }};B_3=\frac{\sqrt{\pi 12}}{6(2\pi )^{3/2}}\gamma ^1.$$
(98)
It can be shown that the coefficients $`T_0,T_1`$ can be also written in terms of the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-function as $`T_0=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }^2(3/4)}{\sqrt{\pi }},T_1=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }^2(1/4)}{4\sqrt{\pi }}`$.

## X Appendix B : the function $`y(t)`$

We want to compute $`y(t)`$, the inverse Laplace Transformation of $`y^L(s)`$ of Eq. (37), defined by

$$y(t)=\frac{1}{2\pi i}_{\sigma i\mathrm{}}^{\sigma +i\mathrm{}}𝑑sy^L(s)e^{st}$$
(99)
where $`\sigma `$ has to be chosen in such a way that all the poles of $`y^L(s)`$ are on the left of the path of integration.

We first study the pole structure of $`y^L(s)`$ in the half-plane $`x>0`$ with $`s=x+iy`$. The real part $`R(x,y)`$ of the denominator of $`y^L(s)`$ is given by

$$R(x,y)=x2r4TRe(f^L(x,y))$$
(100)
where

$$Re\left(f^L(x,y)\right)=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑tf(t)e^{xt}cos(yt).$$
(101)
Given that $`f(t)0`$ for any time, (see Eq. (34)), for non-negative values of $`x`$, $`Re(f^L(x,y))`$ is a monotone decreasing function of both $`x`$ and $`y`$. This implies, from Eq. (100), that $`R(x,y)`$ is a monotone increasing function in the half-plane considered. As a consequence, $`R(x,y)`$ remains positive for all $`x0`$ if $`R(0,0)>0`$. Since from the definition of $`T_c(\gamma )`$ given in Eq. (25) one has

$$R(0,0)>0\text{}T<T_c(\gamma )$$
(102)
$$R(0,0)=0\text{}T=T_c(\gamma )$$
(103)
$$R(0,0)<0\text{}T>T_c(\gamma )\text{ ,}$$
(104)
for $`TT_c(\gamma )`$, $`R(x,y)`$ is always positive for $`x>0`$ and $`y^L(s)`$ has no poles in the complex positive half-plane. In particular at $`T=T_c(\gamma )`$ there is a pole in the origin. On the other hand, for $`T>T_c(\gamma )`$, the monotonic behaviour of $`R(x,y)`$ and Eq. (104) imply the existence of a positive $`p`$ such that $`R(x,y)>R(p,0)=0`$ for any $`x>p`$. Since the imaginary part of the denominator of $`y^L(s)`$ is zero everywhere on the real axis, one can conclude that the largest pole is located on the real axis at $`p`$ and, in the Bromwich contour (the vertical integration path of Fig. 5), $`\sigma >p`$.

We can now calculate explicitly the integral of Eq. (99) in the different temperature regimes.

$`𝐓<T_c(\gamma )`$

In this case there are no poles in the positive complex plane and the Bromwich contour can coincide with the imaginary axis. The theorem of residues can be applied choosing a closed contour in the negative complex half-plane. Due to the non analytical part of $`f^L(s)`$, there is a branch cut in the complex plane along the negative real axis. Then we choose the contour $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ of Fig. 5 and the only non vanishing contributions come from the Bromwich contour itself and from the integral along both sides of the branch cut. Then, one has

$$_\mathrm{\Theta }𝑑sy^L(s)e^{st}=2i\pi y(t)+_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑xe^{xt}\left(y^L(s)_{s=xe^{i\pi }}y^L(s)_{s=xe^{i\pi }}\right).$$
(105)
Since we are interested in the large time behaviour of $`y(t)`$, we can compute the above integrals taking only the small $`s`$ behaviour of $`f^L(s)`$ given in Eqs. (85,96). We obtain

$$_\mathrm{\Theta }𝑑sy^L(s)e^{st}=2i\pi y(t)2\pi i\frac{B_2}{M^4}\left(T+\mathrm{\Delta }_0M_0^2\right)t^2\text{}d=2\text{ }$$
(106)
$$_\mathrm{\Theta }𝑑sy^L(s)e^{st}=2i\pi y(t)2\sqrt{\pi }i\frac{3}{4}\frac{B_3}{M^4}\left(T+\mathrm{\Delta }_0M_0^2\right)t^{5/2}\text{}d=3\text{ }$$
(107)
The above expressions are equal to the sum of the residues of all eventual poles inside $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$. In the negative complex plane these poles can only give contributions exponentially decreasing with time which are asymptotically negligible with respect to the power law behaviour of Eqs. (106) and (107). Henceforth we obtain expressions (38,39) in $`d=2`$ and $`d=3`$ respectively.

$`𝐓=T_c(\gamma )`$

The same contour $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ of the $`T<T_c(\gamma )`$ case can be chosen since the pole located in the origin is outside $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$. The evaluation of the integrals proceeds differently in $`d=2`$ and $`d=3`$. In $`d=2`$ the computation strictly follows the one presented for $`T<T_c(\gamma )`$. The non vanishing contributions on $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ still come from the Bromwich contour and the integrals around the cut. One obtains

$$_\mathrm{\Theta }𝑑sy^L(s)e^{st}=2i\pi y(t)2\pi i\frac{1}{2B_2T_c(\gamma )}\left(\frac{1}{2}+\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_0M_0^2}{2T_c(\gamma )}\right)\frac{1}{\mathrm{log}t}$$
(108)
which gives, at the end, the result of Eq. (38). In $`d=3`$ the contribution coming from the small half-circle around the origin gives a constant term. Since, as before, the integral along both sides of the cut has a decreasing power law behaviour, asymptotically, the contribution from the half-circle around the origin is the dominant one and

$$_\mathrm{\Theta }𝑑sy^L(s)e^{st}=2i\pi y(t)\pi i\frac{1+M_0^2\mathrm{\Delta }_0/T_c(\gamma )}{1+4T_c(\gamma )A_3}$$
(109)
resulting in Eq. (39).

$`𝐓T_c(\gamma )`$

In the case of a temperature $`T=T_c(\gamma )+\delta T`$ with $`\delta T/T_c(\gamma )1`$ the preliminary discussion about $`R(x,y)`$ assures the presence of a pole on the positive real axis close to the origin. The location $`(p,0)`$ of this pole is given by the solution of the equation

$$R(p,0)=0$$
(110)
that, for $`p1`$, as $`\delta T/T_c(\gamma )1`$ implies, reads

$$p\mathrm{log}(p)=M_0^2\delta T/(T_c(\gamma )2B_2T)\text{}d=2\text{ }$$
(111)
$$p(1/2+2TA_3)=M_0^2\delta T/T_c(\gamma )\text{}d=3\text{ . }$$
(112)
At this point a similar procedure as in the case $`T=T_c(\gamma )`$ can be followed giving the asymptotic behaviour for $`y(t)`$ of Eqs. (38) and (39) in $`d=2`$ and $`d=3`$, respectively.

## XI Appendix C: Asymptotic behaviour of the zero mode of $`C(\stackrel{}{k},t)`$ for $`T<T_c(\gamma )`$

The value $`C(\stackrel{}{k}=0,t_0)`$ can be obtained from Eq. (30) and reads

$$C(\stackrel{}{k}=0,t_0)=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_0}{y(t_0)}+\frac{2T}{y(t_0)}_0^{t_0}y(z)𝑑z.$$
(113)
The integral appearing in the above equation can be splitted into two terms:

$$_0^{t_0}y(z)𝑑z=_0^{\mathrm{}}y(z)𝑑z_{t_0}^{\mathrm{}}y(z)𝑑z.$$
(114)
From Eq. (37) one has

$$_0^{\mathrm{}}y(z)𝑑z=y^L(0)=\frac{1}{2M^2}+\frac{M_0^2}{M^2}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_0}{2T_c(\gamma )}$$
(115)
where we have used Eqs. (86,97), while the asymptotic behaviour of $`y(t)`$ (Eqs. (38,39)) gives

$$_{t_0}^{\mathrm{}}y(z)𝑑z=\frac{1}{(8\pi )^{d/2}}\frac{\sqrt{12}}{\gamma }\frac{T+\mathrm{\Delta }_0M_0^2}{M^4}\frac{2}{d}t_0^{d/2}.$$
(116)
Putting together Eqs. (113,115,116) one finally obtains

$$C(\stackrel{}{k}=0,t_0)=\frac{1}{y(t_0)}\left(M^2\frac{4T}{(8\pi )^{d/2}}\frac{\sqrt{12}}{d\gamma }t_0^{d/2}\right)\frac{T+\mathrm{\Delta }_0M_0^2}{M^4}.$$
(117)
Notice that the dependence on the initial condition, namely the parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$, drops out for $`t\tau _s`$ in Eq. (117), by virtue of the expressions (38,39) of $`y(t_0)`$, because the scaling regime is entered and the memory of the intial state is lost.

## XII Appendix D: The autocorrelation function

The evolution equation (42) for the autocorrelation function $`D(t,t^{})`$ can be integrated starting from a generic time $`t_0`$ chosen arbitrarely between the time of the quench ($`t=0`$) and the observation time $`t`$. The formal solution for $`D(t,t^{})`$ then reads

$$D(t,t^{})=D_T(t,t^{})+D_0(t,t^{})$$
(118)
where

$$D_T(t,t^{})=\frac{2T}{\sqrt{y(t^{})y(t)}}\frac{d^dk}{(2\pi )^d}e^{(k^2+d(\gamma )/2)/\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}_{t_0}^t^{}𝑑ze^{2_0^{tz}𝒦^2(u)𝑑u}e^{_0^{tt^{}}𝒦^2(u)𝑑u}y(z)$$
(119)
and

$$D_0(t,t^{})=\frac{y(t_0)}{\sqrt{y(t^{})y(t)}}\frac{d^dk}{(2\pi )^d}C(𝒦(tt_0),t_0)e^{(k^2+d(\gamma )/2)/\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}e^{2_0^{tt_0}𝒦^2(u)𝑑u}e^{_0^\tau 𝒦^2(u)𝑑u}$$
(120)
with $`d(\gamma )=𝒦^2(tt^{})k^2`$.

We will take the time $`t_0`$ large enough ($`t_0\tau _s`$) that $`y(t)`$ is given by Eqs. (38,39). Furthermore it can be shown that, due to the condition (23), the function $`d(\gamma )`$ can be neglected in Eqs. (120,119).

We will first consider the function $`D_T(t,t^{})`$. Carrying out the integral one obtains

$`D_T(t,t^{})={\displaystyle \frac{4T}{(8\pi )^{d/2}\sqrt{y(t)y(t^{})}}}\times `$ (122)
$`{\displaystyle _{t_0}^t^{}}y(z)(t_mz+\tau _M)^{d/2}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{4\gamma ^2\frac{((tz)^2\tau ^2/2)^2}{(t_mz+\tau _M)^2}+\frac{4}{3}\gamma ^2\frac{((tz)^3\tau ^3/2)}{(t_mz+\tau _M)}}}}𝑑z`$
with $`\tau =tt^{}`$ and $`t_m=(t+t^{})/2`$. The role of the cutoff $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is crucial in the factor $`(t_mz+\tau _M)^{d/2}`$ in order to avoid divergences at $`z=t_m`$; however, for large $`t_m>\tau _s`$, one finds that it can be neglected in the two terms under the square root. Then, introducing the variable $`u=1z/t_m`$, one has

$$D_T(t,t^{})=\frac{4T}{(8\pi )^{d/2}}\frac{t_m^{d/2}}{\gamma }_{\tau /(2t_m)}^{1t_0/t_m}\rho (u,\tau ,t_m)\mathrm{\Theta }(u,\tau ,t_m)𝑑u$$
(123)
where

$$\rho (u,\tau ,t_m)=\frac{(u+1/(2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2t_m))^{d/2}}{\sqrt{\frac{4}{\gamma ^2t_m^2}+\frac{1}{3}u^2+\frac{1}{2}(\frac{\tau }{t_m})^2\left(1\frac{(\tau /t_m)^2}{8u^2}\right)}}$$
(124)
and

$$\mathrm{\Theta }(u,\tau ,t_m)=\{\begin{array}{cc}e^{2\xi _{}^2t_mu}\hfill & \text{; for }T>T_c(\gamma )\hfill \\ 1\hfill & \text{; for }T=T_c(\gamma )\text{}d=3\hfill \\ \frac{\sqrt{\mathrm{log}(t_m+\tau /2)\mathrm{log}(t_m\tau /2)}}{\mathrm{log}[t_m(1u)]}\hfill & \text{; for }T=T_c(\gamma )\text{}d=2\hfill \\ \left(\frac{1u}{\sqrt{1(\tau /2t_m)^2}}\right)^{\frac{d+2}{2}}\hfill & \text{; for }T<T_c(\gamma )\text{ .}\hfill \end{array}$$
(125)
Turning now to the function $`D_0(t,t^{})`$, in the limit $`t^{}/t_01`$, due to the presence of the exponential factors in Eq. (120), $`D_0(t,t^{})`$ can be evaluated by approximating the one-time correlation function $`C(𝒦(tt_0),t_0)`$ at the time $`t_0`$ entering Eq. (119), whose expression is given in Eq. (30), with its value at $`\stackrel{}{k}=0`$. Then one has

$`D_0(t,t^{})=`$ (127)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{C(\stackrel{}{k}=0,t_0)y(t_0)}{\sqrt{y(t)y(t^{})}}}(t\tau /2+1/2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2)^{d/2}{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\sqrt{4\gamma ^2\frac{(t^2\tau ^2/2)^2}{(t\tau /2+1/(2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2))^2}+\frac{4}{3}\gamma ^2\frac{(t^3\tau ^3/2)}{(t\tau /2+1/2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2)}}}}.`$
From this point on one must distinguish different temperature ranges.

$`𝐓>𝐓_𝐜(\gamma )`$

Starting with $`D_T(t,t^{})`$, from Eqs.(123,124,125), one has

$$D_T(t,t^{})=\frac{4T}{(8\pi )^{d/2}}_{\tau /2}^{t_mt_0}e^{2\xi _{}^2y}(y+1/2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2)^{d/2}\frac{1}{\sqrt{4+\frac{1}{3}\gamma ^2y^2+\frac{\gamma ^2}{2}\tau ^2\left(1\frac{\tau ^2}{8y^2}\right)}}𝑑y.$$
(128)
In the limit $`t_m\mathrm{}`$, $`D_T(t_m,\tau )`$ becomes a TTI quantity

$$D_{st}(\tau ,\xi _{})=\frac{4T}{(8\pi )^{d/2}}_{\tau /2}^{\mathrm{}}e^{2\xi _{}^2y}(y+1/2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2)^{d/2}\frac{1}{\sqrt{4+\frac{1}{3}\gamma ^2y^2+\frac{\gamma ^2}{2}\tau ^2\left(1\frac{\tau ^2}{8y^2}\right)}}𝑑y.$$
(129)
With respect to $`D_0(t,t^{})`$, by inserting the asymptotic behaviours of $`y(t)`$ ( Eqs. (38,39)) in Eq. (127), one immediately obtains

$$D_0(t,t^{})e^{2\xi _{}^2(t+t^{})/2}$$
(130)
From expressions (129,130) it is clear that, in the limit $`t^{}\xi _{}^2`$, $`D_0(t,t^{})`$ is negligible with respect to $`D_T(t,t^{})`$ so that

$$D(t,t^{})D_{st}(\tau ,\xi _{})$$
(131)
and $`D_{st}(\tau ,\xi _{})`$ is given in Eq. (129).

$`𝐓=𝐓_𝐜(\gamma )`$

In this case the same results (128,129) are found for $`D_T(t,t^{})`$ but with $`\xi _{}^1=0`$. In particular the large $`t_m`$ behaviour of $`D(t,t^{})`$ is given by

$$D_{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})=\frac{4T}{(8\pi )^{d/2}}_{\tau /2}^{\mathrm{}}(y+1/2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2)^{d/2}\frac{1}{\sqrt{4+\frac{1}{3}\gamma ^2y^2+\frac{\gamma ^2}{2}\tau ^2\left(1\frac{\tau ^2}{8y^2}\right)}}𝑑y$$
(132)
with corrections of order $`t_m^{d/2}`$.

Regarding $`D_0(t,t^{})`$, from Eqs. (38,39) one has

$$D_0(t,t^{})\left(\frac{t+t^{}}{2}\right)^{(d+2)/2}$$
(133)
with logarithmic corrections in $`d=2`$.

Comparing Eq. (132) with Eq. (133) one can show that again, in the limit $`t^{}\tau _s`$, $`D_0(t,t^{})`$ is negligible with respect to $`D_T(t,t^{})`$, as for $`T>T_c(\gamma )`$. Therefore

$$D(t,t^{})D_{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{}).$$
(134)
The expression for $`D_{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})`$ is Eq. (132).

$`𝐓<𝐓_𝐜(\gamma )`$

For $`T<T_c(\gamma )`$ we study the behaviour of $`D_T(t,t^{})`$ separately in the temporal regimes $`\tau /t_m1`$ (quasi-stationary regime) and $`\tau /t_m2/3`$ $`(\tau /t^{}1)`$ (aging regime). In the quasi-stationary regime, the function $`\rho (u,\tau ,t_m)`$ of Eq. (124) is of order $`t_m^{(d+2)/2}`$ for $`u1`$ and decreases to zero as $`\rho (u,\tau ,t_m)u^{(d+2)/2}`$ when $`u>1/\gamma t_m`$. In the same regime, $`\mathrm{\Theta }1`$ when $`u1`$ while it diverges like $`(1u)^{(d+2)/2}`$ for $`u1t_0/t_m`$. In the limits $`\gamma t_m\mathrm{}`$ and $`t_0/t_m0`$, the leading contributions to the integral of Eq. (123) coming from the singularities of the functions $`\rho (u,\tau ,t_m)`$ for $`u0`$ and of $`\mathrm{\Theta }(u,\tau ,t_m)`$ for $`u1t_0/t_m`$ give

$`D_T(t_m,\tau )=`$ (135)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{4T}{(8\pi )^{d/2}}}{\displaystyle \frac{t_m^{d/2}}{\gamma }}\left[{\displaystyle _{\tau /(2t_m)}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑u\rho (u,\tau ,t_m)+\sqrt{3}{\displaystyle _0^{1t_0/(2t_m)}}𝑑u\mathrm{\Theta }(u,\tau ,t_m)\right]+𝒪(t_m^{d/2})=`$ (136)
$`D_{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})+{\displaystyle \frac{4\sqrt{12}T}{(8\pi )^{d/2}d\gamma }}t_0^{d/2}+𝒪(t_m^{d/2}).`$ (137)
Similar considerations applied to the aging regime imply

$`D_T(t_m,\tau )=`$ (138)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{4T}{(8\pi )^{d/2}}}{\displaystyle \frac{t_m^{d/2}}{\gamma }}{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{3}}{\sqrt{1+\frac{3}{2}(\frac{\tau }{t_m})^2(1\frac{1}{8}(\frac{\tau }{t_m})^2)}}}{\displaystyle _0^{1t_0/(2t_m)}}𝑑u\mathrm{\Theta }(u,\tau ,t_m)+𝒪(t_m^{d/2})=`$ (139)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{4T}{(8\pi )^{d/2}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{12}}{d\gamma }}t_0^{d/2}\left({\displaystyle \frac{t}{t^{}}}\right)^{\frac{d+2}{4}}(1+t^{}/t)^{\frac{d+2}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{2^{\frac{d+2}{2}}}{\sqrt{4\frac{2(1t^{}/t)^3}{1+t^{}/t}3\frac{(2(1t^{}/t)^2)^2}{(1+t^{}/t)^2}}}}+𝒪(t_m^{d/2}).`$ (140)
For $`D_0(t,t^{})`$ one finds

$`D_0(t,t^{})=`$ (142)
$`\left(M^2{\displaystyle \frac{4T}{(8\pi )^{d/2}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{12}}{d\gamma }}t_0^{d/2}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{t}{t^{}}}\right)^{\frac{d+2}{4}}(1+t^{}/t)^{\frac{d+2}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{2^{\frac{d+2}{2}}}{\sqrt{4\frac{2(1t^{}/t)^3}{1+t^{}/t}3\frac{(2(1t^{}/t)^2)^2}{(1+t^{}/t)^2}}}}`$
where the expression of $`C(\stackrel{}{k}=0,t_0)`$ obtained in appendix C has been used and the limit $`t^{}\tau _s`$ is assumed.

Summarizing, summing up $`D_0(t,t^{})`$ (Eq. (142)) with $`D_T(t,t^{})`$ (Eq. (135)), in the quasi-stationary regime one obtains

$$D(t,t^{})D_{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})+M^2$$
(143)
with $`D_{st}(\tau ,\mathrm{})`$ given in Eq. (132) while, in the aging regime, from Eqs. (142,138) one has

$$D(t,t^{})=D_{ag}(t/t^{})=M^2\left(\frac{t}{t^{}}\right)^{\frac{d+2}{4}}(1+t^{}/t)^{\frac{d+2}{2}}\frac{2^{\frac{d+2}{2}}}{\sqrt{4\frac{2(1t^{}/t)^3}{1+t^{}/t}3\frac{(2(1t^{}/t)^2)^2}{(1+t^{}/t)^2}}}.$$
(144)
thus defining the quantity $`D_{ag}(t/t^{})`$.

###### Acknowledgements.

We acknowledge support by MURST(PRIN 2000). F.C. is grateful to M.Cirillo, R.Del Sole and M.Palummo for hospitality in the University of Rome. †corberi@na.infn.it ; \*gonnella@ba.infn.it ‡lippiello@sa.infn.it ; §zannetti@na.infn.it