Specific heat of the Coulomb glass

The specific heat c of the Coulomb glass is studied by numerical simulation s. Both the lattice model with various strengths of disorder, and the rando m-position model are considered for the one- to three-dimensional cases. In order to extend the investigations down to very low temperatures where the many-valley structure of the configuration space is of great importance we use a hybrid Metropolis procedure. This algorithm bridges the gap between Metropolis simulation and analytical statistical mechanics. The analysis of the simulation results shows that the correlation length of the relevant p rocesses is rather small., and that multi-particle processes yield an essen tial contribution to the specific heat in all cases except the one-dimensio nal random-position model.