Effects of a local defect on one-dimensional nonlinear surface growth

Abstract

The slow-bond problem is a long-standing question about the minimal strength is an element of(c) of a local defect with global effects on the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class. A consensus on the issue has been delayed due to the discrepancy between various analytical predictions claiming is an element of(c) = 0 and numerical observations claiming is an element of(c) > 0. We revisit the problem via finite-size scaling analyses of the slow-bond effects, which are tested for different boundary conditions through extensive Monte Carlo simulations. Our results provide evidence that the previously reported nonzero is an element of(c) is an artifact of a crossover phenomenon which logarithmically converges to zero as the system size goes to infinity.