Energetics of clusters in the two-dimensional Gaussian Ising spin glass

We study numerically the properties of local low-energy excitations in the two-dimensional Ising spin glass with Gaussian couplings. Given the ground state, we determine the lowest-lying connected cluster of flipped spins containing one given spin, either with a fixed volume, or with a volume constrained to lie in a certain range. Our aim is to understand corrections to the scaling predicted by the droplet picture of spin glasses and to resolve contradictory results reported in the literature for the stiffness exponent. We find no clear trace of corrections to scaling, and the obtained stiffness exponent is in relatively good agreement with standard domain-wall calculations.