FLUCTUATING LOOPS AND GLASSY DYNAMICS OF A PINNED LINE IN 2 DIMENSIONS

We represent the slow, glassy equilibrium dynamics of a Line in a two- dimensional random potential landscape as driven by an array of asympt otically independent two-state systems, or loops, fluctuating on all l ength scales. The assumption of independence enables a fairly complete analytic description. We obtain good agreement with Monte Carlo simul ations when the free energy barriers separating the two sides of a loo p of size L are drawn from a distribution those width and mean scale a s L(1/3) in agreement with recent results for the scaling of such barr iers.