Replica field theory for random manifolds

We consider the field theory formulation for manifolds in random media using the replica method. We use a variational (Hartree-Fock like) method which shows that replica symmetry is spontaneously broken. A hierarchical breaking of symmetry allows one to take into account the existence of many metastable states for the manifold, and to recover the results of the Flory scaling arguments for the wandering exponent. This field theoretic derivation of Flory results opens the way to computing corrections to these exponents.