Eur. Phys. J. B (2015) 88: 204
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2015-60326-8

Regular Article

Interfacial adsorption in Potts models on the square lattice

¹ Applied Mathematics Research Centre, Coventry University, Coventry, CV1 5FB, UK
² Department of Physics, Section of Solid State Physics, University of Athens, Panepistimiopolis, GR 15784 Zografou, Greece
³ Institut für Theoretische Physik and JARA-HPC, RWTH Aachen University, 52056 Aachen, Germany
⁴ Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, 142432 Chernogolovka, Russia

^a e-mail: selke@physik.rwth-aachen.de

Received: 25 April 2015
Published online: 10 August 2015

Abstract

We study the effect of interfacial phenomena in two-dimensional perfect and random (or disordered) q-state Potts models with continuous phase transitions, using, mainly, Monte Carlo techniques. In particular, for the total interfacial adsorption, the critical behavior, including corrections to scaling, are analyzed. The role of randomness is scrutinized. Results are discussed applying scaling arguments and invoking findings for bulk critical properties. In all studied cases, i.e., q = 3, 4, and q = 8, the spread of the interfacial adsorption profiles is observed to increase linearly with the lattice size at the bulk transition point.