Finite-size effects in roughness distribution scaling

TL;DR

This study investigates finite-size effects on roughness distribution scaling in interface growth models, revealing limitations of common scaling relations and proposing alternative approaches to account for finite-size corrections.

Contribution

The paper demonstrates that standard scaling relations fail in certain models and introduces alternative scaling methods that better account for finite-size effects in roughness distributions.

Findings

Standard scaling with average roughness fails in some models.

Alternative scaling with fluctuation measures improves data collapse.

Finite-size effects significantly impact roughness and height distributions.

Abstract

We study numerically finite-size corrections in scaling relations for roughness distributions of various interface growth models. The most common relation, which considers the average roughness $<w_2>$ as scaling factor, is not obeyed in the steady states of a group of ballistic-like models in 2+1 dimensions, even when very large system sizes are considered. On the other hand, good collapse of the same data is obtained with a scaling relation that involves the root mean square fluctuation of the roughness, which can be explained by finite-size effects on second moments of the scaling functions. We also obtain data collapse with an alternative scaling relation that accounts for the effect of the intrinsic width, which is a constant correction term previously proposed for the scaling of $<w_2>$. This illustrates how finite-size corrections can be obtained from roughness distributions scaling. However, we discard the usual interpretation that the intrinsic width is a consequence of high surface steps by analyzing data of restricted solid-on-solid models with various maximal height differences between neighboring columns. We also observe that large finite-size corrections in the roughness distributions are usually accompanied by huge corrections in height distributions and average local slopes, as well as in estimates of scaling exponents. The molecular-beam epitaxy model of Das Sarma and Tamborenea in 1+1 dimensions is a case example in which none of the proposed scaling relations works properly, while the other measured quantities do not converge to the expected asymptotic values. Thus, although roughness distributions are clearly better than other quantities to determine the universality class of a growing system, it is not the final solution for this task.