Coupled Fluctuations near Critical Wetting

TL;DR

This paper investigates the coupling of fluctuations near the critical wetting transition, predicts a crossover effect, and reanalyzes simulation data to confirm theoretical predictions about fluctuation behavior at the transition.

Contribution

It extends fluctuation coupling analysis to the wetting transition and identifies a crossover effect related to decoupling of fluctuations.

Findings

Reanalysis of Monte-Carlo data confirms fluctuation decoupling near T_W.

Extracted fluctuation exponent (T_W)=0.8 matches theoretical predictions.

Identified a crossover effect associated with the decoupling of fluctuations.

Abstract

Recent work on the complete wetting transition has emphasized the role played by the coupling of fluctuations of the order parameter at the wall and at the depinning fluid interface. Extending this approach to the wetting transition itself we predict a novel crossover effect associated with the decoupling of fluctuations as the temperature is lowered towards the transition temperature T_W. Using this we are able to reanalyse recent Monte-Carlo simulation studies and extract a value \omega(T_W)=0.8 at T_W=0.9T_C in very good agreement with long standing theoretical predictions.