Low-temperature dynamics of kinks on Ising interfaces

Abstract

The anisotropic motion of an interface driven by its intrinsic curvature or by an external field is investigated in the context of the kinetic Ising model in both two and three dimensions. We derive in two dimensions (2D) a continuum evolution equation for the density of kinks by a time-dependent and nonlocal mapping to the asymmetric exclusion process. Whereas kinks execute random walks biased by the external field and pile up vertically on the physical 2D lattice, they execute hard-core biased random walks on a transformed 1D lattice. Their density obeys a nonlinear diffusion equation which can be transformed into the standard expression for the interface velocity, v=M [ (gamma+gamma'') kappa+H] , where M , gamma+gamma", and kappa are the interface mobility, stiffness, and curvature, respectively. In 3D, we obtain the velocity of a curved interface near the 100 orientation from an analysis of the self-similar evolution of 2D shrinking terraces. We show that this velocity is consistent with the one predicted from the 3D tensorial generalization of the law for anisotropic curvature-driven motion. In this generalization, both the interface stiffness tensor and the curvature tensor are singular at the 100 orientation. However, their product, which determines the interface velocity, is smooth. In addition, we illustrate how this kink-based kinetic description provides a useful framework for studying more complex situations by modeling the effect of immobile dilute impurities.