Revisiting a low-dimensional model with short range interactions and mean field critical behavior

In all local low-dimensional models, scaling at critical points deviates from mean field behavior – with one possible exception. This exceptional model with “ordinary” behavior is an inherently non-equilibrium model studied some time ago by H.-M. Bröker and myself. In simulations, its 2-dimensional version suggested that two critical exponents were mean-field, while a third one showed very small deviations. Moreover, the numerics agreed almost perfectly with an explicit mean field model. In the present paper we present simulations with much higher statistics, both for 2d and 3d. In both cases we find that the deviations of all critical exponents from their mean field values are non-leading corrections, and that the scaling is precisely of mean field type. As in the original paper, we propose that the mechanism for this is “confusion”, a strong randomization of the phases of feed-backs that can occur in non-equilibrium systems.