Elastic lines on splayed columnar defects studied numerically

TL;DR

This study uses exact optimization to analyze elastic lines in splayed columnar defects, revealing distinct roughening behaviors and the absence of entanglement transition in pure splay systems, with entanglement induced by point defects.

Contribution

It provides a detailed numerical analysis of elastic lines in splayed columnar disorder, highlighting differences from point disorder and the conditions for entanglement.

Findings

Ground state separability leads to different roughening in 2D and 3D.

No entanglement transition occurs in pure splayed columnar disorder in 3D.

Entanglement can be induced by adding point defects to the splay system.

Abstract

We investigate by exact optimization method properties of two- and three-dimensional systems of elastic lines in presence of splayed columnar disorder. The ground state of many lines is separable both in 2d and 3d leading to a random walk -like roughening in 2d and ballistic behavior in 3d. Furthermore, we find that in the case of pure splayed columnar disorder in contrast to point disorder there is no entanglement transition in 3d. Entanglement can be triggered by perturbing the pure splay system with point defects.