Elastic systems with correlated disorder: Response to tilt and application to surface growth

Abstract

We study elastic systems such as interfaces or lattices pinned by correlated quenched disorder considering two different types of correlations: generalized columnar disorder and quenched defects correlated as ~ x^{-a} for large separation x. Using functional renormalization group methods, we obtain the critical exponents to two-loop order and calculate the response to a transverse field h. The correlated disorder violates the statistical tilt symmetry resulting in nonlinear response to a tilt. Elastic systems with columnar disorder exhibit a transverse Meissner effect: disorder generates the critical field h_c below which there is no response to a tilt and above which the tilt angle behaves as θ~ (h-h_c)^ϕ with a universal exponent ϕ<1. This describes the destruction of a weak Bose glass in type-II superconductors with columnar disorder caused by tilt of the magnetic field. For isotropic long-range correlated disorder, the linear tilt modulus vanishes at small fields leading to a power-law response θ~ h^ϕ with ϕ>1. The obtained results are applied to the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation with temporally correlated noise.