Repository logo
 

Strong Coupling in Conserved Surface Roughening: A New Universality Class?

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Caballero, Fernando 
Nardini, Cesare 
van Wijland, Frédéric 
Cates, Michael E 

Abstract

The Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) equation defines the main universality class for nonlinear growth and roughening of surfaces. But under certain conditions, a conserved KPZ equation (CKPZ) is thought to set the universality class instead. This has non-mean-field behavior only in spatial dimension d<2. We point out here that CKPZ is incomplete: It omits a symmetry-allowed nonlinear gradient term of the same order as the one retained. Adding this term, we find a parameter regime where the one-loop renormalization group flow diverges. This suggests a phase transition to a new growth phase, possibly ruled by a strong-coupling fixed point and thus described by a new universality class, for any d>1. In this phase, numerical integration of the model in d=2 gives clear evidence of non-mean-field behavior.

Description

Keywords

0912 Materials Engineering

Journal Title

Phys Rev Lett

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0031-9007
1079-7114

Volume Title

121

Publisher

American Physical Society (APS)
Sponsorship
Royal Society (RP080053)
European Research Council (740269)
Royal Society (RP170002)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (1781654)