Critical exponents of the driven elastic string in a disordered medium

Abstract

We analyze the harmonic elastic string driven through a continuous random potential above the depinning threshold. The velocity exponent beta = 0.33(2) is calculated. We observe a crossover in the roughness exponent zeta from the critical value 1.26 to the asymptotic (large force) value of 0.5. We calculate directly the velocity correlation function and the corresponding correlation length exponent nu = 1.29(5), which obeys the scaling relation nu = 1/(2-zeta), and agrees with the finite-size-scaling exponent of fluctuations in the critical force. The velocity correlation function is non-universal at short distances.