NPAC Technical Report SCCS-671
Monte Carlo Simulations of Random Surfaces with Extrinsic Curvature
Leping Han
Submitted December 09 1994
Abstract
Random surfaces are of great interest as a model of gravity, but also
provide the basis for an exploration of membranes. Many random
surface models have been proposed to describe fluctuating fluid
membranes. These models have been extensively studied both
analytically and numerically. We analyze numerically the critical
properties of two-dimensional discretized random surfaces with
extrinsic curvature embedded in a three-dimensional space. We measure
a variety of local observables and use a finite size scaling analysis
to characterize as much as possible the regime of crossover from
crumpled to smooth surfaces. We exclude some possible explanations for
the observed cross-over behavior and provide more questions for
further study. The computational issues and technical implementations
of Dynamically Triangulated Random Surfaces on computers, including
parallel computers, are discussed in detail.