Velocity-force characteristics of a driven interface in a disordered medium

Abstract

Using a dynamic functional renormalization group treatment of driven elastic interfaces in a disordered medium, we investigate several aspects of the creep-type motion induced by external forces below the depinning threshold $f_c$: i) We show that in the experimentally important regime of forces slightly below $f_c$ the velocity obeys an Arrhenius-type law $v\sim\exp[-U(f)/T]$ with an effective energy barrier $U(f)\propto (f_{c}-f)$ vanishing linearly when f approaches the threshold $f_c$. ii) Thermal fluctuations soften the pinning landscape at high temperatures. Determining the corresponding velocity-force characteristics at low driving forces for internal dimensions d=1,2 (strings and interfaces) we find a particular non-Arrhenius type creep $v\sim \exp[-(f_c(T)/f)^{\mu}]$ involving the reduced threshold force $f_c(T)$ alone. For d=3 we obtain a similar v-f characteristic which is, however, non-universal and depends explicitly on the microscopic cutoff.