We study the replica field theory which describes the pinning of elastic manifolds of arbitrary internal dimension d in a random potential, with the aim of bridging the gap between mean field and renormalization theory. The full effective action is computed exactly in the limit of large embedding space dimension N. The second cumulant of the renormalized disorder obeys a closed self-consistent equation. It is used to derive a functional renormalization group (FRG) equation valid in any dimension d, which correctly matches the Balents-Fisher result to first order in $\epsilon =4\mathrm{}-d.\mathrm{}$ We analyze in detail the solutions of the large-N FRG for both long- and short-range disorder, at zero and finite temperature. We find consistent agreement with the results of Mezard and Parisi (MP) from the Gaussian variational method (GVM) in the case where full replica symmetry breaking (RSB) holds there. We prove that the cusplike non-analyticity in the large-N FRG appears at a finite scale, corresponding to the instability of the replica symmetric solution of MP. We show that the FRG exactly reproduces, for any disorder correlator and with no need to invoke Parisi’s spontaneous RSB, the nontrivial result of the GVM for small overlap. A formula is found yielding the complete RSB solution for all overlaps. Since our saddle-point equations for the effective action contain both the MP equations and the FRG, it can be used to describe the crossover from FRG to RSB. A qualitative analysis of this crossover is given, as well as a comparison with previous attempts to relate FRG to GVM. Finally, we discuss applications to other problems and new perspectives.

• Received 24 June 2003

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.68.174202