Some recent (and surprising) results on interface and contact line depinning in random media

Abstract

I give a brief review of results obtained recently at Ecole Normale on the depinning transition of interfaces and contact lines using a variety of approaches: non-local Monte Carlo algorithms, dynamical renormalization group calculations to 2-loop order, and exact solution of an infinite-range model.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures. Talk given at "Horizons in complex Systems" (Messina, December 2001), to be published in Physica