Derivation of the Casimir contribution to the binding potential for 3D wetting

The renormalisation group theory of critical and tri-critical wetting transitions in three-dimensional systems with short-ranged forces, based on analysis of an effective Hamiltonian with an interfacial binding potential (Formula presented.), predicts very strong non-universal critical singularities...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Squarcini, Alessio, Romero Enrique, José Manuel, Parry, Andrew O.
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2023
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Sevilla (US)
Repositorio:idUS. Depósito de Investigación de la Universidad de Sevilla
OAI Identifier:oai:idus.us.es:11441/148141
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/11441/148141
https://doi.org/10.1080/00268976.2023.2193654
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Casimir forces
Fluctuations
Wetting
Descripción
Sumario:The renormalisation group theory of critical and tri-critical wetting transitions in three-dimensional systems with short-ranged forces, based on analysis of an effective Hamiltonian with an interfacial binding potential (Formula presented.), predicts very strong non-universal critical singularities. These, however, have famously not been observed in extensive Monte Carlo simulations of the transitions in the simple cubic Ising model. Here, we show that previous treatments have missed an entropic, or low-temperature Casimir, contribution to the binding potential, arising from the many different microscopic configurations which correspond to a given interfacial one. We derive the full binding potential, including the Casimir correction term, starting from a microscopic Landau–Ginzburg–Wilson Hamiltonian, using a continuum transfer-matrix (path-integral) method. This is illustrated first in one dimension before generalising to arbitrary dimension. The Casimir contribution is qualitatively different for first-order, critical and tri-critical wetting transitions and substantially alters previous predictions for critical singularities bringing them much closer to the simulation results.