# REFERENCES

Comment on ”Macrospopic Equation for the Roughness of Growing Interfaces in Quenched Disorder”

In a recent Letter  Braunstein and Buceta introduced a ’macroscopic’ equation for the time evolution of the width of interfaces belonging to the directed percolation depinning (DPD) universality class . From numerical simulations of the DPD model, they inferred an ansatz (Eq.(1) in Ref.) for the time derivative of the interface width (called DSIW in Ref.) at the depinning transition. Braunstein and Buceta found that their formula fitted the numerical data at the depinning trasition, for $`q_c=0.539`$ and $`\beta =0.63`$, with the appropriate election of some arbitrary constants.

Here we argue that, contrary to what it is claimed in Ref., Braunstein and Buceta’s formula does not describe the ’macroscopic’ behaviour of the interface. The formula proposed in Ref for the DSIW is an approximation to the very short times regime (when less than one layer has been completed), which is not significant for the description of the surface dynamics at large scales. We obtain analitically the short time behaviour of the DPD model, which is valid for any q and explains the apperance of an exponential term in the formula of Ref. for the DSIW.

Let us consider the DPD model in a system of size $`L`$ and a density $`q`$ of blocked cells ($`p=1q`$ density of free cells). We are interested in the very short times regime when the first monolayer still has not been completed, i.e. the number of growth attempts $`N`$ is $`NL`$ (this corresponds to times $`t=N/L1`$). In this regime, the probability of having a column $`i`$ with height $`h_i>min(h_{i1},h_{i+1})+2`$ is negligible and the columns are growing almost independently. The growth at this early stage can be seen as a random deposition (RD) process  in which every column grows in one unit with probability $`p/L`$. The short time regime of the DPD model is then like RD, which is solvable exactly, but with the additional ingredient of a density $`q`$ of blocked sites.

One can see that, within this approximation, the probability of having a column with height $`h`$ after $`N`$ growth attempts is given by

$$P(N,h)=\frac{(Nsp)^h}{h!}e^{Ns}+qp^h\underset{r=h+1}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{(Ns)^r}{r!}e^{Ns},$$
(1)   
where $`s=1/L`$ is the probability of attempting to growth a column and the usual approximation $`s^r(1s)^{Nr}N!/[(Nr)!r!](Ns)^rexp(Ns)/r!`$ has been made.

From the probability (1), one can calculate the interface width $`W^2=h^2h^2`$ and then the time derivative, which leading terms are

$$\frac{dW^2}{dt}=pe^{qt}+2p^2e^{qt}\left(\frac{e^{qt}1}{q}+t\right),$$
(2)   
where $`t=Ns=N/L`$ is the time in the units used in Ref.. This formula gives the exact time evolution of $`\frac{dW^2}{dt}`$ for any $`q`$ (not only at $`q_c=0.539`$) and is valid for times $`t1`$. For times $`t>1`$ differences between neighbouring columns are likely to be larger than $`2`$ resulting in horizontal correlations and the break down of (2). A comparison of Eq.(2) with numerical simulations of the DPD model is presented in Figure 1.

Our calculation suggests that the exponential term in the ansatz of Ref. is actually produced by the usual random deposition-like dynamics, which occurs in any growth model  for short times.

Juan M. López,   
Department of Mathematics, Imperial College,   
180 Queen’s Gate, London SW7 2BZ, United Kingdom   

José J. Ramasco<sup>∗,†</sup> and Miguel A. Rodríguez   
Departamento de Física Moderna,   
Universidad de Cantabria, Avenida Los Castros s/n,   
Santander E-39005, Spain

Instituto de Física de Cantabria,   
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas – Universidad de Cantabria,   
Santander E-39005, Spain