Depinning in a Random Medium

Abstract

We develop a renormalized continuum field theory for a directed polymer interacting with a random medium and a single extended defect. The renormalization group is based on the operator algebra of the pinning potential; it has novel features due to the breakdown of hyperscaling in a random system. There is a second-order transition between a localized and a delocalized phase of the polymer; we obtain analytic results on its critical pinning strength and scaling exponents. Our results are directly related to spatially inhomogeneous Kardar-Parisi-Zhang surface growth.

11 pages (latex) with one figure (now printable, no other changes)

References in corpus (5)

• Anomalous Fluctuations of Directed Polymers in Random Media
• The Nonequilibrium Dynamics of Driven Line Liquids
• Disorder-Induced Depinning Transition
• Delocalization of Flux Lines from Extended Defects by Bulk Randomness
• New Criticality of 1D Fermions

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Quantized Scaling of Growing Surfaces
• Similarity-Detection and Localization
• Queuing Transitions in the Asymmetric Simple Exclusion Process
• On Growth, Disorder, and Field Theory
• Effect of a columnar defect on the shape of slow-combustion fronts
• Effects of junctional correlations in the totally asymmetric simple exclusion process on random regular networks
• Effects of a local defect on one-dimensional nonlinear surface growth
• Passive Tracer Dynamics in Slow-Bond Problem