Roughening transition in a model for dimer adsorption and desorption

TL;DR

This paper introduces a solid-on-solid growth model for dimer adsorption and desorption, revealing a roughening transition with critical properties linked to branching-annihilating random walks.

Contribution

The study presents a novel dimer adsorption-desorption model exhibiting a roughening transition and connects its critical behavior to branching-annihilating random walks.

Findings

The model exhibits a transition from smooth to rough interface phases.

In both phases, the interface remains pinned and does not propagate.

Critical properties are related to a hierarchy of parity-conserving random walks.

Abstract

A solid-on-solid growth model for dimer adsorption and desorption is introduced and studied numerically. The special property of the model is that dimers can only desorb at the edges of terraces. It is shown that the model exhibits a roughening transition from a smooth to a rough phase. In both phases the interface remains pinned to the bottom layer and does not propagate. Close to the transition certain critical properties are related to those of a unidirectionally coupled hierarchy of parity-conserving branching-annihilating random walks.