Interface roughening with a time-varying external driving force

Abstract

We present a theoretical and numerical investigation of the effect of a time-varying external driving force on interface growth. First, we derive a relation between the roughening exponents which comes from a generalized Galilean invariance, showing how the critical dimension of the model is tunable with the external field. We further conjecture results for the exponents in two dimensions, and find consistency with data obtained through simulations of two models we expect to be in the same universality class. Finally, we discuss how our results can be investigated experimentally.