English

Crossing probability for directed polymers in random media: exact tail of the distribution

Statistical Mechanics 2016-03-23 v1 Disordered Systems and Neural Networks

Abstract

We study the probability ppη(t)p \equiv p_\eta(t) that two directed polymers in a given random potential η\eta and with fixed and nearby endpoints, do not cross until time tt. This probability is itself a random variable (over samples η\eta) which, as we show, acquires a very broad probability distribution at large time. In particular the moments of pp are found to be dominated by atypical samples where pp is of order unity. Building on a formula established by us in a previous work using nested Bethe Ansatz and Macdonald process methods, we obtain analytically the leading large time behavior of {\it all moments} pmγm/t\overline{p^m}\simeq \gamma_m/t. From this, we extract the exact tail ρ(p)/t\sim \rho(p)/t of the probability distribution of the non-crossing probability at large time. The exact formula is compared to numerical simulations, with excellent agreement.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1511.05387,
  title  = {Crossing probability for directed polymers in random media: exact tail of the distribution},
  author = {Andrea De Luca and Pierre Le Doussal},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1511.05387},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

16 pages + 6 pages of appendices, 2 figures