The Kardar-Parisi-Zhang model of a random kinetic growth: effects of a randomly moving medium

Abstract

The effects of a randomly moving environment on a randomly growing interface are studied by the field theoretic renormalization group analysis. The kinetic growth of an interface (kinetic roughening) is described by the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang stochastic differential equation while the velocity field of the moving medium is modelled by the Navier-Stokes equation with an external random force. It is found that the large-scale, long-time (infrared) asymptotic behavior of the system is divided into four nonequilibrium universality classes related to the four types of the renormalization group equations fixed points. In addition to the previously established regimes of asymptotic behavior (ordinary diffusion, ordinary kinetic growth process, and passively advected scalar field), a new nontrivial regime is found. The fixed point coordinates, their regions of stability and the critical dimensions related to the critical exponents (e.g., roughness exponent) are calculated to the first order of the expansion in $\epsilon=2-d$ where $d$ is a space dimension (one-loop approximation) or exactly. The new regime possesses a feature typical to the the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang model: the fixed point corresponding to the regime cannot be reached from a physical starting point. Thus, physical interpretation is elusive.