  We investigate the effects of layered quenched disorder on the behavior of
planar magnets, superfluids, and superconductors by performing large-scale
Monte-Carlo simulations of a three-dimensional randomly layered XY model. Our
data provide numerical evidence for the recently predicted anomalously elastic
(sliding) intermediate phase between the conventional high-temperature and
low-temperature phases. In this intermediate phase, the spin-wave stiffness
perpendicular to the layers vanishes in the thermodynamic limit while the
stiffness parallel to the layers as well as the spontaneous magnetization are
nonzero. In addition, the susceptibility displays unconventional finite-size
scaling properties. We compare our Monte-Carlo results with the theoretical
predictions, and we discuss possible experiments in ultracold atomic gases,
layered superconductors and in nanostructures.
