Nonequilibrium dynamics below the super-roughening transition

Abstract

The non equilibrium relaxational dynamics of the solid on solid model on a disordered substrate and the Sine Gordon model with random phase shifts is studied numerically. Close to the super-roughening temperature $T_g$ our results for the autocorrelations, spatial correlations and response function as well as for the fluctuation dissipation ratio (FDR) agree well with the prediction of a recent one loop RG calculation, whereas deep in the glassy low temperature phase substantial deviations occur. The change in the low temperature behavior of these quantities compared with the RG predictions is shown to be contained in a change of the functional temperature dependence of the dynamical exponent $z(T)$, which relates the age $t$ of the system with a length scale ${\cal L}(t)$: $z(T)$ changes from a linear $T$-dependence close to $T_g$ to a 1/T-behavior far away from $T_g$. By identifying spatial domains as connected patches of the exactly computable ground states of the system we demonstrate that the growing length scale ${\cal L}(t)$ is the characteristic size of thermally fluctuating clusters around ``typical'' long-lived configurations.