Eur. Phys. J. B 5, 811-823 (1998)
https://doi.org/10.1007/s100510050507

Critical behavior of interacting surfaces with tension^*

¹ Institut für theoretische Physik, Universität Köln, Zülpicher Strasse 77, 50937 Köln, Germany
² Max-Planck-Institut für Kolloid- und Grenzflächenforschung, Kantstrasse 55, 14513 Teltow-Seehof, Germany

Corresponding author: ^a av@thp.uni-koeln.de

Received: 30 January 1998
Accepted: 17 March 1998
Published online: 15 October 1998

Abstract

Wetting phenomena, molecular protrusions of lipid bilayers and membrane stacks under lateral tension provide physical examples for interacting surfaces with tension. Such surfaces are studied theoretically using functional renormalization and Monte-Carlo simulations. The critical behavior arising from thermally-excited shape fluctuations is determined both for global quantities such as the mean separation of these surfaces and for local quantities such as the probabilities for local contacts.