Determining exponents in models of kinetic surface roughening.

Abstract

One of the central objectives when simulating models of kinetic surface roughening is the calculation of the scaling exponents that describe the roughness of the surface and its temporal evolution. This can generally be done by studying various correlation functions. In this paper it is shown that in models that exhibit a crossover at large length scales the choice of the correlation function is crucial: Using the two-dimensional Wolf-Villain model as an example, it is shown that the exponents obtained from the scaling behavior of the width or the height-height correlation function can be almost twice as large as the correct values. Reliable estimates are obtained using the structure factor or the time-time autocorrelation function.