Interfacial structure at a two-dimensional wedge filling transition: exact results and a renormalization group study

TL;DR

This paper investigates the interfacial structure at a 2D wedge filling transition using exact solutions and renormalization group methods, revealing a new dominant length scale influencing interfacial decay and correlations.

Contribution

It provides the first exact results and a renormalization group analysis for interfacial behavior near a 2D wedge filling transition, highlighting a new large length scale.

Findings

A new length scale emerges near the filling transition.

The interfacial profile decay is governed by this large length scale.

The behavior aligns with a breather mode fluctuation picture.

Abstract

Interfacial structure and correlation functions near a two-dimensional (2D) wedge filling transition are studied using effective interfacial Hamiltonian models. An exact solution for short range binding potentials and results for Kratzer binding potentials show that sufficiently close to the filling transition a new length scale emerges and controls the decay of the interfacial profile relative to the substrate and the correlations between interfacial positions above different positions. This new length scale is much larger than the intrinsic interfacial correlation length, and it is related geometrically to the average value of the interfacial position above the wedge midpoint. The interfacial behavior is consistent with a breather mode fluctuation picture, which is shown to emerge from an exact decimation functional renormalization group scheme that keeps the geometry invariant.