Many models of random surface growth through ballistic deposition in 1
spatial dimension are expected to have universal fluctuation behaviour
(KPZ class). One special model in this class, the polynuclear growth
model, turned out to be solvable explicitly in some sense, and
recently Praehofer and Spohn computed the exact scaling limit of its
two-point correlation function using the results of Baik and Rains on
a last passage percolation problem. We describe the results of
Praehofer and Spohn and discuss their connection to the last passage
percolation problem and random permutations.
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