# REFERENCES

Emig and Nattermann Reply: The Comment of Hazareesing and Bouchaud  on our recent Letter ’Roughening Transition of Interfaces in Disordered Systems’  addresses three points:

(i) They obtain an order $`ϵ=4D`$ correction to our result $`\nu ^1=2\sqrt{ϵ}`$ for the correlation length exponent $`\nu `$.

(ii) They consider a generalization of our model to an $`N`$ dimensional displacement field $`\mathit{\varphi }=(\varphi _1,\mathrm{},\varphi _N)`$ and find for that model a first-order transition if $`N>4`$.

(iii) They criticize the generalization of our results to systems with non-local elastic interaction by arguing that there is no renormalization of the non-local elastic term and hence no fixed point in lowest order $`ϵ`$, which again may result in a first order transition.

Our Reply is as follows:

(i) The corrections of order $`ϵ`$ to $`\nu ^1`$ are not only determined by one-loop contributions – as considered in Refs.  – but also by higher order terms which may lead also to $`ϵ^{3/2}`$ contributions to the disorder correlator . The calculations presented in Refs.  are only able to give the value of $`\nu ^1`$ to order $`\sqrt{ϵ}`$ correctly.

(ii) The generalized Hamiltonian of HB assumes a periodic potential $`v\mathrm{cos}(2\pi (\varphi _1+\mathrm{}+\varphi _N)/\sqrt{N})`$ which has the property that even for $`v\mathrm{}`$ the manifold is rough in the $`N1`$ dimensional subspace $`_i\varphi _i=n\sqrt{N}`$ where $`n`$ is integer. Lowering the ratio between $`v`$ and the disorder strength, eventually a transition to a phase will occur in which the confinement to this subspace is lost. However, note that in the latter phase the roughness exponent is smaller than in the confined phase for larger $`v`$. Even if this transition would be first order for $`N>4`$, as HB claim, its physical significance is not completely evident.

In a separate article, we have considered a different generalization to a $`N>1`$ component model  by assuming a periodic potential of the form $`v(\mathrm{cos}\varphi _1+\mathrm{}+\mathrm{cos}\varphi _N)`$, which is free of the physical deficiencies of the model proposed by HB. Using a functional renormalization group approach, our model shows a continous transition for all finite $`N`$ and the result for the exponent $`\nu `$ given in our Letter remains valid to order $`\sqrt{ϵ}`$ independent of $`N`$.

(iii) In the case of non-local elasticity the upper and lower critical dimension for the appearance of a roughening transition decrease from $`D_u=4`$, $`D_l=2`$ to $`D_u=3`$, $`D_l=5/3`$, respectively, as stated in . However, HB are correct in their statement that there is indeed no renormalization of the non-local elastic term as we assumed erroneously. This may result in a first order transition as found in the self-consistent calculation by Müssel , who neglected a renormalization of the stiffness constant from the very beginning.

We thank J.-P. Bouchaud for useful discussions.

Thorsten Emig and Thomas Nattermann   
Institut für Theoretische Physik   
Universität zu Köln   
Zülpicher Str. 77   
D-50937 Köln, Germany

Date: 23. October 1998

PACS numbers: 68.35.Ct, 05.20.-y