The potential energy landscape of the +/- J Ising spin glass

We calculate 'inherent structures' (configurations corresponding to local p otential energy minima) in the +/- J Ising spin glass over a wide range of temperature T in two and three dimensions. We find that the T-dependence of the average value of the inherent-structure energy E is strikingly similar to that shown recently for a glass-forming liquids. E decreases with T onl y weakly at high T, bur begins to decrease much more rapidly as the spin-gl ass transition temperature T-sg is approached. As in the liquid, we find th at the rapid decrease of E with decreasing T occurs in the regime of T in w hich the relaxation of the spin autocorrelation function becomes increasing ly non-exponential. In addition, we show that the inherent structures of th e spin glass can be used to identify clusters of strongly correlated 'froze n' spins, and that an incipient percolating cluster of these spins appears (within numerical error) at T = T-sg.