Local Scale Invariance for Wetting and Confined Interfaces Articles uri icon

publication date

  • March 2010

start page

  • 125002

issue

  • 12

volume

  • 43

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 1751-8113

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 1751-8121

abstract

  • When a fluid or Ising-like magnet is confined between two parallel walls that are each completely wet by different bulk phases, the interface separating the phases is subject to large-scale fluctuations determined
    by the slit width. It was noted some time ago that, in two dimensions,
    the scaling expression for the probability distribution function
    describing the interfacial height across the slit shows remarkable
    similarities with predictions of conformal invariance. However, this
    local scale invariance appears to contradict the strongly anisotropic
    nature of (1 + 1)-dimensional interfacial fluctuations along and
    perpendicular to the interface, characterized by the wandering exponent.
    In this paper, we show that similarity with conformal invariance is not
    coincidental and can be understood explicitly as the projection of a
    local scale invariance for a wandering line in 2 + 1 dimensions.