Eur. Phys. J. B 4, 459-467 (1998)
https://doi.org/10.1007/s100510050403

Corrugation-induced first-order wetting: An effective Hamiltonian study

¹ Max-Planck Institut für Kolloid- und Grenzflächenforschung, Kantstrasse 55, 14513 Teltow-Seehof, Germany
² Department of Mathematics, Imperial College, 180 Queen's Gate, London SW7 2BZ, United Kingdom

Corresponding author: ^a swain@mpikg-teltow.mpg.de

Received: 13 February 1998
Revised: 29 April 1998
Accepted: 6 May 1998
Published online: 15 August 1998

Abstract

We consider an effective Hamiltonian description of critical wetting transitions in systems with short-range forces at a corrugated (periodic) wall. We are able to recover the results obtained previously from a "microscopic" density-functional approach in which the system wets in a discontinuous manner when the amplitude of the corrugations reaches a critical size A^*. Using the functional renormalization group, we find that A^* becomes dependent on the wetting parameter ω in such a way as to decrease the extent of the first- order regime. Nevertheless, we still expect wetting in the three-dimensional Ising model to proceed in a discontinuous manner for small deviations of the wall from the plane.