Universal spatio-temporal scaling of distortions in a drifting lattice

Abstract: We study the dynamical response to small distortions of a lattice about its uniform state, drifting through a dissipative medium due to an external force, and show, analytically and numerically, that the fluctuations, both transverse and longitudinal to the direction of the drift, exhibit spatiotemporal scaling belonging to the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang universality class. Further, we predict that a colloidal crystal drifting in a constant electric field is linearly stable against distortions and the distortions propagate as underdamped waves.