The one-dimensional polynuclear growth model with external sources at edges is studied. The height fluctuation at the origin is known to be given by either the Gaussian, the GUE Tracy-Widom distribution, or certain distributions called GOE$^2$ and $F_0$, depending on the strength of the sources. We generalize these results and show that the scaling limit of the multi-point equal time height fluctuations of the model are described by the Fredholm determinant, of which the limiting kernel is explicitly obtained. In particular we obtain two new kernels, describing transitions between the above one-point distributions. One expresses the transition from the GOE$^2$ to the GUE Tracy-Widom distribution or to the Gaussian; the other the transition from $F_0$ to the Gaussian. The results specialized to the fluctuation at the origin are shown to be equivalent to the previously obtained ones via the Riemann-Hilbert method.
This article studies the inhomogeneous geometric polynuclear growth model, the distribution of which is related to Schur functions. We explain a method to derive its distribution functions in both space-like and time-like directions, focusing on the two-time distribution. Asymptotics of the two-time distribution in the KPZ-scaling limit is then considered, extending to two times several single-time distributions in the KPZ universality class.
We study the multi-time distribution in a discrete polynuclear growth model or, equivalently, in directed last-passage percolation with geometric weights. A formula for the joint multi-time distribution function is derived in the discrete setting. It takes the form of a multiple contour integral of a block Fredholm determinant. The asymptotic multi-time distribution is then computed by taking the appropriate KPZ-scaling limit of this formula. This distribution is expected to be universal for models in the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang universality class.
We consider the multi-point equal time height fluctuations of a one-dimensional polynuclear growth model in a half space. For special values of the nucleation rate at the origin, the multi-layer version of the model is reduced to a determinantal process, for which the asymptotics can be analyzed. In the scaling limit, the fluctuations near the origin are shown to be equivalent to those of the largest eigenvalue of the orthogonal/symplectic to unitary transition ensemble at soft edge in random matrix theory.
We consider a discrete polynuclear growth (PNG) process and prove a functioal limit theorem for its convergrence to the Airy process. This generalizes previous results by Pr"ahofer and Spohn. The result enables us to express the GOE largest eigenvalue (Tracy-Widom) distribution in terms of the Airy process. We also show some results and give a conjecture about the transversal fluctuations in a point to line last passage percolation problem.
We consider the polynuclear growth (PNG) model in 1+1 dimension with flat initial condition and no extra constraints. Through the Robinson-Schensted-Knuth (RSK) construction, one obtains the multilayer PNG model, which consists of a stack of non-intersecting lines, the top one being the PNG height. The statistics of the lines is translation invariant and at a fixed position the lines define a point process. We prove that for large times the edge of this point process, suitably scaled, has a limit. This limit is a Pfaffian point process and identical to the one obtained from the edge scaling of…
We present a random matrix interpretation of the distribution functions which have appeared in the study of the one-dimensional polynuclear growth (PNG) model with external sources. It is shown that the distribution, GOE$^2$, which is defined as the square of the GOE Tracy-Widom distribution, can be obtained as the scaled largest eigenvalue distribution of a special case of a random matrix model with a deterministic source, which have been studied in a different context previously. Compared to the original interpretation of the GOE$^2$ as ``the square of GOE'', ours has an advantage that it ca…
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the limiting distribution functions for a polynuclear growth model with two external sources, which was considered by Prähofer and Spohn. Depending on the strength of the sources, the limiting distribution functions are either the Tracy-Widom functions of random matrix theory, or a new explicit function which has the special property that its mean is zero. Moreover, we obtain transition functions between pairs of the above distribution functions in suitably scaled limits. There are also similar results for a discrete totally asymmetric exclusion proc…
We study the partition function of a two-dimensional Coulomb gas on a circle, in the presence of external pointlike charges, in a double scaling limit where both the external charges and the number of gas particles are large. Our original motivation comes from studying amplitudes for multi-string emission from a decaying D-brane in the high energy limit. We analyze the scaling limit of the partition function and calculate explicit results. We also consider applications to random matrix theory. The partition functions can be related to random scattering, or to weights of lattice paths in certai…
We introduce and study a one parameter deformation of the polynuclear growth (PNG) in $(1+1)$-dimensions, which we call the $t$-PNG model. It is defined by requiring that, when two expanding islands merge, with probability $t$ they sprout another island on top of the merging location. At $t=0$, this becomes the standard (non-deformed) PNG model that, in the droplet geometry, can be reformulated through longest increasing subsequences of uniformly random permutations or through an algorithm known as patience sorting. In terms of the latter, the $t$-PNG model allows errors to occur in the sortin…
We prove that the Airy process, A(t), locally fluctuates like a Brownian motion. In the same spirit we also show that in a certain scaling limit, the so called discrete polynuclear growth (PNG) process behaves like a Brownian motion.
We consider the polynuclear growth (PNG) model in 1+1 dimension with flat initial condition and no extra constraints. The joint distributions of surface height at finitely many points at a fixed time moment are given as marginals of a signed determinantal point process. The long time scaling limit of the surface height is shown to coincide with the Airy_1 process. This result holds more generally for the observation points located along any space-like path in the space-time plane. We also obtain the corresponding results for the discrete time TASEP (totally asymmetric simple exclusion process)…
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…
In this review paper we consider the polynuclear growth (PNG) model in one spatial dimension and its relation to random matrix ensembles. For curved and flat growth the scaling functions of the surface fluctuations coincide with limit distribution functions coming from certain Gaussian ensembles of random matrices. This connection can be explained via point processes associated to the PNG model and the random matrices ensemble by an extension to the multilayer PNG and multi-matrix models, respectively. We also explain other models which are equivalent to the PNG model: directed polymers, the l…
There has been much success in describing the limiting spatial fluctuations of growth models in the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class. A proper rescaling of time should introduce a non-trivial temporal dimension to these limiting fluctuations. In one-dimension, the KPZ class has the dynamical scaling exponent $z=3/2$, that means one should find a universal space-time limiting process under the scaling of time as $t\,T$, space like $t^{2/3} X$ and fluctuations like $t^{1/3}$ as $t\to\infty$. In this paper we provide evidence for this belief. We prove that under certain hypotheses, gr…
We study the joint probability distribution function (pdf) of the maximum M of the height and its position X_M of a curved growing interface belonging to the universality class described by the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation in 1+1 dimensions. We obtain exact results for the closely related problem of p non-intersecting Brownian bridges where we compute the joint pdf P_p(M,τ_M) where τ_M is there the time at which the maximal height M is reached. Our analytical results, in the limit p \to \infty, become exact for the interface problem in the growth regime. We show that our results, for moderate …
Anomalous transport in one dimensional translation invariant Hamiltonian systems with short range interactions, is shown to belong in general to the KPZ universality class. Exact asymptotic forms for density-density and current-current time correlation functions and their Fourier transforms are given in terms of the Prähofer-Spohn scaling functions, obtained from their exact solution for the Polynuclear growth model. The exponents of corrections to scaling are found as well, but not so the coefficients. Mode coupling theories developed previously are found to be adequate for weakly nonlinear c…
We study the extreme statistics of N non-intersecting Brownian motions (vicious walkers) over a unit time interval in one dimension. Using path-integral techniques we compute exactly the joint distribution of the maximum M and of the time τ_M at which this maximum is reached. We focus in particular on non-intersecting Brownian bridges ("watermelons without wall") and non-intersecting Brownian excursions ("watermelons with a wall"). We discuss in detail the relationships between such vicious walkers models in watermelons configurations and stochastic growth models in curved geometry on the one …
We compute the one-point probability distribution for the stationary KPZ equation (i.e. initial data H(0,X)=B(X), for B(X) a two-sided standard Brownian motion) and show that as time T goes to infinity, the fluctuations of the height function H(T,X) grow like T^{1/3} and converge to those previously encountered in the study of the stationary totally asymmetric simple exclusion process, polynuclear growth model and last passage percolation. The starting point for this work is our derivation of a Fredholm determinant formula for Macdonald processes which degenerates to a corresponding formula fo…
Motivated by the polynuclear growth model, we consider a Brownian bridge b(t) with b(\pm T)=0 conditioned to stay above the semicircle c_T(t)=\sqrtT^2-t^2. In the limit of large T, the fluctuation scale of b(t)-c_T(t) is T^{1/3} and its time-correlation scale is T^{2/3}. We prove that, in the sense of weak convergence of path measures, the conditioned Brownian bridge, when properly rescaled, converges to a stationary diffusion process with a drift explicitly given in terms of Airy functions. The dependence on the reference point t=τT, τ\in(-1,1), is only through the second derivative of c_T(t)…
The Painlevé transcendents discovered at the turn of the XX century by pure mathematical reasoning, have later made their surprising appearance -- much in the way of Wigner's "miracle of appropriateness" -- in various problems of theoretical physics. The notable examples include the two-dimensional Ising model, one-dimensional impenetrable Bose gas, corner and polynuclear growth models, one dimensional directed polymers, string theory, two dimensional quantum gravity, and spectral distributions of random matrices. In the present contribution, ideas of integrability are utilized to advocate eme…
