Universality and corrections to scaling in the ballistic deposition model - art. no. 056116

In order to analyze some controversies on the equivalence between ballistic deposition (BD) and the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) theory, we simulated the BD model in one and two dimensions. Effective exponents beta (L) were obta ined in he growth regions, which were rigorously determined for various len gths L. Effective exponents alpha (L) were obtained from saturation widths in the steady-state regimes. In d = 1 we found beta (L) = beta + AL(-lambda ) and alpha (L) = alpha + BL-Delta, with asymptotic exponents consistent wi th the KPZ values beta = 1/3 and alpha = 1/2, and correction-to-scaling exp onents 0.2 less than or similar to lambda less than or similar to0.4 and 0. 6 less than or similar to Delta less than or similar to0.8. These strong fi nite-size corrections explain the previous discrepancies between numerical estimates for ED and the exact KPZ results. In d = 2 we could only obtain r eliable estimates of alpha (L), which are consistent with KPZ values if fin ite-size corrections with Delta approximate to 0.4 are considered.