Glassy trapping of manifolds in nonpotential random flows

TL;DR

This paper investigates how polymers and elastic manifolds become trapped in nonpotential random flows, revealing a new glassy phase characterized by a novel RG fixed point and specific scaling exponents.

Contribution

It introduces a new renormalization group fixed point at finite temperature for manifolds in nonpotential flows, and computes associated roughness and dynamical exponents.

Findings

Glassy trapping occurs even without potential barriers.

A new RG fixed point governs the physics at finite temperature.

Explicit scaling exponents for roughness and dynamics are derived.

Abstract

We study the dynamics of polymers and elastic manifolds in non potential static random flows. We find that barriers are generated from combined effects of elasticity, disorder and thermal fluctuations. This leads to glassy trapping even in pure barrier-free divergenceless flows $v {f \to 0}{\sim} f^\phi$ ($\phi > 1$). The physics is described by a new RG fixed point at finite temperature. We compute the anomalous roughness $R \sim L^\zeta$ and dynamical $t\sim L^z$ exponents for directed and isotropic manifolds.