Particles Sliding on a Fluctuating Surface: Phase Separation and Power Laws

Abstract

We study a system of hard-core particles sliding locally downwards on a fluctuating one-dimensional surface characterized by a dynamical exponent z and no overall tilt. In numerical simulations, an initially random particle density is found to coarsen and obey scaling with a growing length scale approximately t(1/z). The structure factor deviates from the Porod law for the models studied. The steady state is unusual in that the density-segregation order parameter shows strong fluctuations. The two-point correlation function has a scaling form with a cusp at small argument which we relate to a power law distribution of particle cluster sizes. Exact results on a related model of surface depths provide insight into this behavior.