Determination of cross over effects in lattice models from the local height difference distribution

Growth of interfaces during vapor deposition is analyzed on a discrete lattice. It leads to finding distribution of local heights, measurable for any lattice model. Invariance in the change of this distribution in time is used to determine the cross over effects in various models. The analysis is applied to the discrete linear growth equation and Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) equation. A new model is devised that shows early convergence to the KPZ dynamics. Various known conservative and non conservative models are tested on a one dimensional substrate by comparing the growth results with the exact KPZ and linear growth equation results. The comparison helps in establishing the condition that determines the presence of cross over effect for the given model. The new model is used in (2+1) dimensions to predict close to the true value of roughness constant for KPZ equation. Copyright EDP Sciences/Società Italiana di Fisica/Springer-Verlag 2006