We explain the exact solution of the 1+1 dimensional Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation with sharp wedge initial conditions. Thereby it is confirmed that the continuum model belongs to the KPZ universality class, not only as regards to scaling exponents but also as regards to the full probability distribution of the height in the long time limit.
We introduce the asymmetric extension of the Quantum Symmetric Simple Exclusion Process which is a stochastic model of fermions on a lattice hopping with random amplitudes. In this setting, we analytically show that the time-integrated current of fermions defines a height field which exhibits a quantum non-linear stochastic Kardar-Parisi-Zhang dynamics. Similarly to classical simple exclusion processes, we further introduce the discrete Cole-Hopf (or Gärtner) transform of the height field which satisfies a quantum version of the Stochastic Heat Equation. Finally, we investigate the limit of th…
In its original version the KPZ equation models the dynamics of an interface bordering a stable phase against a metastable one. Over past years the corresponding two-dimensional field theory has been applied to models with different physics. Out of a wide choice, the spin-spin time correlations for the Heisenberg chain will be discussed at some length, also the equilibrium time-correlations of the conserved fields for 1D fluids. An interesting recent theoretical advance is the construction of the scale-invariant asymptotic theory, the so-called KPZ fixed point.
This is the article with the same title which is scheduled to appear in the January 2022 issue of the AMS Notices, with additional references which could not be provided in the accepted version due to space constraints. The figures in this article were made collaboratively with Milind Hegde.
We study atypically large fluctuations of height $H$ in the 1+1-dimensional Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) equation at long times $t$, when starting from a "droplet" initial condition. We derive exact large deviation function of height for $λH<0$, where $λ$ is the nonlinearity coefficient of the KPZ equation. This large deviation function describes a crossover from the Tracy-Widom distribution tail at small $|H|/t$, which scales as $|H|^3/t$, to a different tail at large $|H|/t$, which scales as $|H|^{5/2}/t^{1/2}$. The latter tail exists at all times $t>0$. It was previously obtained in the framew…
We study the atypically large deviations of the height $H \sim {\cal O}(t)$ at the origin at late times in $1+1$-dimensional growth models belonging to the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class. We present exact results for the rate functions for the discrete single step growth model, as well as for the continuum KPZ equation in a droplet geometry. Based on our exact calculation of the rate functions we argue that models in the KPZ class undergo a third order phase transition from a strong coupling to a weak coupling phase, at late times.
We study height fluctuations of interfaces in the $(1+1)$-dimensional Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) class, growing at different speeds in the left half and the right half of space. Carrying out simulations of the discrete polynuclear growth model with two different growth rates, combined with the standard setting for the droplet, flat, and stationary geometries, we find that the fluctuation properties at and near the boundary are described by the KPZ half-space problem developed in the theoretical literature. In particular, in the droplet case, the distribution at the boundary is given by the larg…
The article covers the one-dimensional Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation, weak drive limit, universality, directed polymers in a random medium, replica solutions, statistical mechanics of line ensembles, and its generalization to several components which is used to study equilibrium time correlations of anharmonic chains and of the discrete nonlinear Schrödinger equation. The notes are an extended version of my lectures at Les Houches July 2015.
We show that several aspects of the low-temperature hydrodynamics of a discrete Gross-Pitaevskii equation (GPE) can be understood by mapping it to a nonlinear version of fluctuating hydrodynamics. This is achieved by first writing the GPE in a hydrodynamic form of a continuity and an Euler equation. Respecting conservation laws, dissipation and noise due to the system's chaos are added, thus giving us a nonlinear stochastic field theory in general and the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) equation in our particular case. This mapping to KPZ is benchmarked against exact Hamiltonian numerics on discrete…
We consider a model of a quenched disordered geometry in which a random metric is defined on ${\mathbb R}^2$, which is flat on average and presents short-range correlations. We focus on the statistical properties of balls and geodesics, i.e., circles and straight lines. We show numerically that the roughness of a ball of radius $R$ scales as $R^χ$, with a fluctuation exponent $χ\simeq 1/3$, while the lateral spread of the minimizing geodesic between two points at a distance $L$ grows as $L^ξ$, with wandering exponent value $ξ\simeq 2/3$. Results on related first-passage percolation (FPP) probl…
We use the $(1+1)$-dimensional Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation driven by a Gaussian white noise and employ the dynamic renormalization-group of Yakhot and Orszag without rescaling [J.~Sci.\ Comput.~{\bf 1}, 3 (1986)]. Hence we calculate the second and third order moments of height distribution using the diagrammatic method in the large scale and long time limits. The moments so calculated lead to the value $S=0.3237$ for the skewness. This value is comparable with numerical and experimental estimates.
The emergence of superdiffusive spin dynamics in integrable classical and quantum magnets is well established by now, but there is no generally valid theoretical explanation for this phenomenon. A fundamental difficulty is that the hydrodynamic fluctuations of conserved quasiparticle modes are purely diffusive. We argue that in isotropic integrable magnets, a complete hydrodynamic description must include soft "gauge" degrees of freedom, that arise from spontaneous breaking of the Bethe pseudovacuum symmetry. We show that the coarse-grained time evolution of these modes lies in the Kardar-Pari…
This is the article by the same name which was published in the March 2016 issue of the AMS Notices. Due to space constraints, some references contained here were not provided in the published version were not provided. The figures in this article were made collaboratively with William Casselman.
We introduce a field-theoretic thermodynamic uncertainty relation as an extension of the one derived so far for a Markovian dynamics on a discrete set of states and for overdamped Langevin equations. We first formulate a framework which describes quantities like current, entropy production and diffusivity in the case of a generic field theory. We will then apply this general setting to the one-dimensional Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation, a paradigmatic example of a non-linear field-theoretic Langevin equation. In particular, we will treat the dimensionless Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation with an eff…
We study the dynamics of vortices in a two-dimensional, non-equilibrium system, described by the compact Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation, after a sudden quench across the critical region. Our exact numerical solution of the phase-ordering kinetics shows that the unique interplay between non-equilibrium and the variable degree of spatial anisotropy leads to different critical regimes. We provide an analytical expression for the vortex evolution, based on scaling arguments, which is in agreement with the numerical results, and confirms the form of the interaction potential between vortices in this …
We study the noisy nonequilibrium dynamics of a conserved density that is driven by a fluctuating surface governed by the conserved Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation. We uncover the universal scaling properties of the conserved density. We consider two separate minimal models where the surface fluctuations couple (i) with the spatial variation of the conserved density, and (ii) directly with the magnitude of the conserved density. Both these two models conserve the density, but differ from symmetry stand point. We use our result to highlight the dependence of nonequilibrium universality classes on …
We consider the evolution of interfaces with a diffusive term and a generalized Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) non-linearity, which results in a propagation velocity that depends periodically on the tilt of the interface. Using large scale simulations of a model class with these properties in 1+1 dimensions, we show that the fluctuations are in general still in the KPZ universality class, but a new universality class seems to appear in the limit of weak non-linearity. We argue that this is the typical behavior of any interface model with periodic tilt dependence.
We introduce a deterministic SO(3) invariant dynamics of classical spins on a discrete space-time lattice and prove its complete integrability by explicitly finding a related non-constant (baxterized) solution of the set-theoretic quantum Yang-Baxter equation over the 2-sphere. Equipping the algebraic structure with the corresponding Lax operator we derive an infinite sequence of conserved quantities with local densities. The dynamics depend on a single continuous spectral parameter and reduce to a (lattice) Landau-Lifshitz model in the limit of a small parameter which corresponds to the conti…
Over the past years our understanding of the scaling properties of the solutions to the one-dimensional KPZ equation has advanced considerably, both theoretically and experimentally. In our contribution we export these insights to the case of coupled KPZ equations in one dimension. We establish equivalence with nonlinear fluctuating hydrodynamics for multi-component driven stochastic lattice gases. To check the predictions of the theory, we perform Monte Carlo simulations of the two-component AHR model. Its steady state is computed using the matrix product ansatz. Thereby all coefficients appe…
We study the stochastically driven conserved Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (CKPZ) equation with quenched disorders. Short-ranged quenched disorders is found to be a relevant perturbation on the pure CKPZ equation at one dimension, and as a result, a new universality class different from pure CKPZ equation appears to emerge. At higher dimensions, quenched disorder turns out to be ineffective to influence the universal scaling. This results in the asymptotic long wavelength scaling to be given by the linear theory, a scenario identical with the pure CKPZ equation. For sufficiently long-ranged quenched dis…
We study scaling properties of the honeycomb fully packed loop ensemble associated with a lozenge tiling model of rough surface, when the latter is driven out of equilibrium by Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) type dynamics. We show numerically that conformal invariance and signatures of critical percolation appear in the stationary KPZ state. In terms of the two-component Coulomb gas description of the Edwards-Wilkinson stationary state, our finding is understood as the invariance of one component under the effect of the non-linear KPZ term. On the other hand, we show a breaking of conformal invaria…
We solve the large deviations of the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) equation in one dimension at short time by introducing an approach which combines field theoretical, probabilistic and integrable techniques. We expand the program of the weak noise theory, which maps the large deviations onto a non-linear hydrodynamic problem, and unveil its complete solvability through a connection to the integrability of the Zakharov-Shabat system. Exact solutions, depending on the initial condition of the KPZ equation, are obtained using the inverse scattering method and a Fredholm determinant framework recentl…
We study the anisotropic Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation using nonperturbative renormalization group methods. In contrast to a previous analysis in the weak-coupling regime we find the strong coupling fixed point corresponding to the isotropic rough phase to be always locally stable and unaffected by the anisotropy even at non-integer dimensions. Apart from the well-known weak coupling and the now well established isotropic strong coupling behavior, we find an anisotropic strong coupling fixed point for nonlinear couplings of opposite signs at non-integer dimensions.
Local Scale-Invariance theory is tested by extensive dynamical simulations of the driven dimer lattice gas model, describing the surface growth of the 2+1 dimensional Kardar-Parisi-Zhang surfaces. Very precise measurements of the universal autoresponse function enabled us to perform nonlinear fitting with the scaling forms, suggested by local scale-invariance (LSI). While the simple LSI ansatz does not seem to work, forms based on logarithmic extension of LSI provide satisfactory description of the full (measured) time evolution of the autoresponse function.
We present the solution of the weak noise theory (WNT) for the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation in one dimension at short time for flat initial condition (IC). The non-linear hydrodynamic equations of the WNT are solved analytically through a connexion to the Zakharov-Shabat (ZS) system using its classical integrability. This approach is based on a recently developed Fredholm determinant framework previously applied to the droplet IC. The flat IC provides the case for a non-vanishing boundary condition of the ZS system and yields a richer solitonic structure comprising the appearance of multiple b…
Tracy-Widom and Baik-Rains distributions appear as universal limit distributions for height fluctuations in the one-dimensional Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) \textit{stochastic} partial differential equation (PDE). We obtain the same universal distributions in the spatiotemporally chaotic, nonequilibrium, but statistically steady state (NESS) of the one-dimensional Kuramoto-Sivashinsky (KS) \textit{deterministic} PDE, by carrying out extensive pseudospectral direct numerical simulations to obtain the spatiotemporal evolution of the KS height profile $h(x,t)$ for different initial conditions. We es…
Recent investigations have observed superdiffusion in integrable classical and quantum spin chains. An intriguing connection between these spin chains and Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class has emerged. Theoretical developments (e.g. generalized hydrodynamics) have highlighted the role of integrability as well as spin-symmetry in KPZ behaviour. However understanding their precise role on superdiffusive transport still remains a challenging task. The widely used quantum spin chain platform comes with severe numerical limitations. To circumvent this barrier, we focus on a classical int…
Transients due to instabilities hinder Kardar-Parisi-Zhang scaling: a unified derivation for surface growth by electrochemical and chemical vapor deposition
The Kardar-Parisi-Zhang model of non-equilibrium critical behaviour (kinetic surface roughening) with turbulent motion of the environment taken into account is studied by the field theoretic renormalization group approach. The turbulent motion is described by the stochastic Navier-Stokes equation with the random stirring force whose correlation function includes two terms that allow one to account both for a turbulent fluid and for a fluid in thermal equilibrium. The renormalization group analysis performed in the leading order of perturbation theory (one-loop approximation) reveals six possib…
Using the weak-noise theory, we evaluate the probability distribution $\mathcal{P}(H,t)$ of large deviations of height $H$ of the evolving surface height $h(x,t)$ in the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) equation in one dimension when starting from a flat interface. We also determine the optimal history of the interface, conditioned on reaching the height $H$ at time $t$. We argue that the tails of $\mathcal{P}$ behave, at arbitrary time $t>0$, and in a proper moving frame, as $-\ln \mathcal{P}\sim |H|^{5/2}$ and $\sim |H|^{3/2}$. The $3/2$ tail coincides with the asymptotic of the Gaussian orthogonal…
