3D wedge filling and 2D random-bond wetting

¹ Departamento de Física Atómica, Molecular y Nuclear, Area de Física Teórica Universidad de Sevilla - Apartado de Correos 1065, 41080 Sevilla, Spain
² Department of Mathematics, Imperial College - 180 Queen's Gate London SW7 2BZ, United Kingdom

Received: 19 July 2005
Accepted: 19 October 2005

Abstract

Fluids adsorbed in 3D wedges are shown to exhibit two types of continuous interfacial unbinding corresponding to critical and tricritical filling, respectively. Analytic solution of an effective interfacial model based on the transfer-matrix formalism allows us to obtain the asymptotic probability distribution functions for the interfacial height when criticality and tricriticality are approached. Generalised random-walk arguments show that, for systems with short-ranged forces, the critical singularities at these transitions are related to 2D complete and critical wetting with random-bond disorder, respectively.