Growth of surfaces generated by a probabilistic cellular automaton

TL;DR

This paper explores how probabilistic cellular automata can generate stochastic surface growth in one dimension, revealing phase transitions and roughening phenomena through models and simulations.

Contribution

It introduces two novel surface growth models based on probabilistic cellular automata and analyzes their phase transitions and surface properties.

Findings

Both models exhibit a depinning transition at the automaton's critical point.

Model B shows a kinetic roughening transition at the same critical point.

Surface width characteristics are derived from critical properties and simulations.

Abstract

A one-dimensional cellular automaton with a probabilistic evolution rule can generate stochastic surface growth in $(1 + 1)$ dimensions. Two such discrete models of surface growth are constructed from a probabilistic cellular automaton which is known to show a transition from a active phase to a absorbing phase at a critical probability associated with two particular components of the evolution rule. In one of these models, called model $A$ in this paper, the surface growth is defined in terms of the evolving front of the cellular automaton on the space-time plane. In the other model, called model $B$, surface growth takes place by a solid-on-solid deposition process controlled by the cellular automaton configurations that appear in successive time-steps. Both the models show a depinning transition at the critical point of the generating cellular automaton. In addition, model $B$ shows a kinetic roughening transition at this point. The characteristics of the surface width in these models are derived by scaling arguments from the critical properties of the generating cellular automaton and by Monte Carlo simulations.