Surface and bulk properties of ballistic deposition models with bond breaking

We introduce a new class of growth models, with a surface restructuring mechanism in which impinging particles may dislodge suspended particles, previously aggregated on the same column in the deposit. The flux of these particles is controlled through a probability p$p$. These systems present a crossover, for small values of p$p$, from random to correlated (KPZ) growth of surface roughness, which is studied through scaling arguments and Monte Carlo simulations on one- and two-dimensional substrates. We show that the crossover characteristic time _t×$t_{\times }$ scales with p$p$ according to _t×∼p^−y$t_{\times }\sim p^{-y}$ with y=(n+1)$y=(n+1)$ and that the interface width at saturation _Wsat$W_{sat}$ scales as _Wsat∼p^−δ$W_{sat}\sim p^{-\delta }$ with δ=(n+1)/2$\delta =(n+1)/2$, where n$n$ is either the maximal number of broken bonds or of dislodged suspended particles. This result shows that the sets of exponents y=1$y=1$ and δ=1/2$\delta =1/2$ or y=2$y=2$ and δ=1$\delta =1$ found in all previous works focusing on systems with this same type of crossover are not universal. Using scaling arguments, we show that the bulk porosity P$P$ of the deposits scales as P∼p^y−δ$P\sim p^{y-\delta }$ for small values of p$p$. This general scaling relation is confirmed by our numerical simulations and explains previous results present in literature.