Universality and corrections to scaling in the ballistic deposition model

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 β_L were obtained in the growth regions, which were rigorously determined for various lengths L. Effective exponents α_L were obtained from saturation widths in the steady-state regimes. In d=1 we found β_L=β+AL^-λ and α_L=α+BL^-Δ, with asymptotic exponents consistent with the KPZ values β=1/3 and α=1/2, and correction-to-scaling exponents 0.2≲λ≲0.4 and 0.6≲Δ≲0.8. These strong finite-size corrections explain the previous discrepancies between numerical estimates for BD and the exact KPZ results. In d=2 we could only obtain reliable estimates of α_L, which are consistent with KPZ values if finite-size corrections with Δ≈0.4 are considered.