The ordinary kinetic versions of the Ising model may be modified to exhibit steady nonequilibrium states. This is illustrated in chapter 4 where a conflict between two canonical mechanisms (diffusion and reaction) drives the configuration away from equilibrium. A more systematic investigation of this possibility, when the conflict is between different reaction processes only, is described here. We focus on spin systems evolving by a superposition of independent local processes of the kind variously known as spin flips, birth/death or creation/annihilation. The restriction to spin flip dynamics does not prevent the systems in this class from exhibiting a variety of nonequilibrium phase transitions and critical phenomena. Their consideration may therefore help in developing nonequilibrium theory. In addition, they have some practical interest, e.g., conflicting dynamics may occur in disordered materials such as dilute magnetic systems, and some of these situations can be implemented in the laboratory.

The present chapter describes some exact, mean-field and MC results that together render an intriguing picture encouraging further study. It is argued in §7.1 that some of the peculiar, emergent, macroscopic behavior of microscopically disordered materials may be related to diffusion of disorder. This provides a physical motivation for the nonequilibrium random-field Ising model (NRFM).