A functional renormalization group approach to systems with long-range correlated disorder

Abstract

We studied the statics and dynamics of elastic manifolds in disordered media with long-range correlated disorder using functional renormalization group (FRG). We identified different universality classes and computed the critical exponents and universal amplitudes describing geometric and velocity-force characteristics. In contrast to uncorrelated disorder, the statistical tilt symmetry is broken resulting in a nontrivial response to a transverse tilting force. For instance, the vortex lattice in disordered superconductors shows a new glass phase whose properties interpolate between those of the Bragg and Bose glasses formed by pointlike and columnar disorder, respectively. Whereas there is no response in the Bose glass phase (transverse Meissner effect), the standard linear response expected in the Bragg-glass gets modified to a power law response in the presence of disorder correlations. We also studied the long distance properties of the O(N) spin system with random fields and random anisotropies correlated as 1/x^{d-sigma}. Using FRG we obtained the phase diagram in (d,sigma,N)-parameter space and computed the corresponding critical exponents. We found that below the lower critical dimension 4+sigma, there can exist two different types of quasi-long-range-order with zero order-parameter but infinite correlation length.