The dynamics of a driven interface, with conservation of total volume under the interface, has been studied using a conserved Kardar-Parisi-Zhang-like equation. Dynamic renormalization group analyses have been performed on the nonlinear, far from equilibrium system in all practically interesting dimensions. The dynamic scaling form, which completely determines the fractal properties of the interface morphology, has been derived and found to be in extremely good agreement with numerical simulations. A new universality class of the growth regime, characterized by a novel superscaling relation, is obtained. For substrate dimension d = 1, the interface morphology is significantly less rough than that observed in the nonconserved system; at the critical dimension $d sb{c}$ = 2, the interface is found to be logarithmically rough. The dynamic roughening transition of the conserved driven interface has also been studied by taking into account a lattice pinning potential. This conserved system exhibits a true phase transition, rather than crossover behavior, as has been observed for nonconserved driven interfaces. The conserved nonlinear driving force is favorable for smoothing the interface, implying that the roughening transition shifts to higher temperatures as that driving force is increased. The nature of the phase transition remains the same as the equilibrium transition; the critical properties are controlled by a Kosterlitz-Thouless fixed point.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.39770 |
| Date | January 1992 |
| Creators | Sun, Tao, 1957- |
| Contributors | Grant, Matin (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Physics.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001325987, proquestno: NN87561, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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