Creep motion of an elastic string in a random potential

Abstract

We study the creep motion of an elastic string in a two dimensional pinning landscape by Langevin dynamics simulations. We find that the Velocity-Force characteristics are well described by the creep formula predicted from phenomenological scaling arguments. We analyze the creep exponent $μ$, and the roughness exponent $ζ$. Two regimes are identified: when the temperature is larger than the strength of the disorder we find $μ\approx 1/4$ and $ζ\approx 2/3$, in agreement with the quasi-equilibrium-nucleation picture of creep motion; on the contrary, lowering enough the temperature, the values of $μ$ and $ζ$ increase showing a strong violation of the latter picture.