Microscopic realizations of the trap model

Monte Carlo optimizations of number partitioning and of Diophantine approximations are microscopic realizations of 'trap model' dynamics. This offers a fresh look at the physics behind this model, and points at other situations in which it may apply. Our results strongly suggest that in any such realization of the trap model, the response and correlation functions of smooth observables obey the fluctuation-dissipation theorem even in the aging regime. Our discussion of the number partitioning problem may be relevant for the class of optimization problems whose cost function does not scale linearly with the size, and are thus awkward from the statistical mechanic point of view