Category: Physics

Summary: Testing whether mixed row- and column-correlated disorder, together with corridor bias, minimizes wandering of an optimal directed polymer path.

Directed polymers in random media are a classic way to study localization and KPZ-type fluctuations. This experiment asks whether mixing two kinds of anisotropic disorder, one correlated by rows and the other by columns, creates a particularly strong trapping regime when the polymer is also biased toward a corridor.

The model keeps total disorder strength fixed while varying the blend of row and column correlations and the strength of corridor bias. It then measures how much the optimal path wanders, looking for an interior regime where longitudinal shocks and transverse pinning work together to confine the polymer more effectively than either ingredient alone.

That focus turns the problem into a geometry-of-disorder question rather than a standard single-disorder-class study. The value is in mapping whether mixed anisotropy generates a distinct low-wandering basin that would be missed by varying only one correlation structure at a time.

Method: GPU sweeps of directed-polymer simulations with mixed row- and column-correlated disorder and tunable corridor bias, measuring optimal-path wandering.

What is measured: Polymer wandering, localization basin structure, dependence on corridor bias, and comparison across anisotropic disorder mixtures.