title: Changing growth conditions during surface growth.
abstract: Motivated by a series of experiments that revealed a temperature dependence of the dynamic scaling regime of growing surfaces, we investigate theoretically how a nonequilibrium growth process reacts to a sudden change of system parameters. We discuss quenches between correlated regimes through exact expressions derived from the stochastic Edwards-Wilkinson equation with a variable diffusion constant. Our study reveals that a sudden change of the diffusion constant leads to remarkable changes in the surface roughness. Different dynamic regimes, characterized by a power-law or by an exponential relaxation, are identified, and a dynamic phase diagram is constructed. We conclude that growth processes provide one of the rare instances where quenches between correlated regimes yield a power-law relaxation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061-0435, USA.
authors.forename: Yen-Liang
authors.initials: YL
authors.lastname: Chou
authors.forename: Michel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pleimling
authors.forename: R K P
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Zia
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D003460:Crystallization / Q000379:methods*; D046911:Macromolecular Substances / Q000737:chemistry*; D008956:Models, Chemical; D013499:Surface Properties
chemical_list: D046911:Macromolecular Substances