COUPLED DYNAMICS OF FAST SPINS AND SLOW INTERACTIONS - AN ALTERNATIVEPERSPECTIVE ON REPLICAS

It is shown that an Ising spin system in which both spins and interact ions evolve in time according to dynamical laws suggested by neural pr ocesses, but with widely separated timescales, leads to a thermodynami c equilibrium corresponding to a system of averaged replicas, where th e replica number can take any real value determined by the ratio of ch aracteristic temperatures. The resultant phase structure has interesti ng features which are explored.