Kinetics of Ordered Phases in Finite Spin Systems

We study the growth of the ordered phase in a spin system of finite size suddenly brought below the transition temperature. Such a growth is driven by the instability of the mode corresponding to the largest eigenvalue of the interaction matrix. The relaxation occurs through different regimes according to whether the unstable mode has a negligible or macroscopic amplitude. One regime is characterised by dynamical scaling properties whereas in the other we can distinguish the growth to a macroscopic amplitude followed by rare transitions from one equilibrium amplitude to another. The analysis is carried out in the framework of a dynamical generalisation of the spherical model assuming non-random and random interactions among the spins. Differences between spin glass and ferromagnetic behaviour are pointed out.