Dynamic fluctuations of elastic lines in random environments

Abstract

We study the fluctuations of the two-time dependent global roughness of finite size elastic lines in a quenched random environment. We propose a scaling form for the roughness distribution function that accounts for the two-time, temperature, and size dependence. At high temperature and in the final stationary regime before saturation the fluctuations are as the ones of the Edwards-Wilkinson interface evolving from typical initial conditions. We analyze the variation of the scaling function within the aging regime and with the distance from saturation. We speculate on the relevance of our results to describe the fluctuations of other non-equilibrium systems such as models at criticality.