The influence of non-locality on fluctuation effects for 3D short-ranged wetting

We use a non-local interfacial Hamiltonian to revisit a number of problems associated with the fluctuation theory of critical wetting transitions in three-dimensional systems with short-ranged forces. These centre around previous renormalization group predictions of strongly non-universal critical singularities and also possible fluctuation-induced first-order (stiffness-instability) behaviour, based on local interfacial models, which are not supported by extensive Monte Carlo simulations of wetting in the three-dimensional Ising model. Non-locality gives rise to long-ranged two-body interfacial interactions controlling the repulsion from the wall not modelled correctly in previous interfacial descriptions. In particular, correlation functions are characterized by two diverging parallel correlation lengths, and , not one as previously thought. Mean-field, Ginzburg criterion and linear renormalization group analyses all show that some interfacial fluctuation effects are strongly damped for wavenumbers q>1/ξNL. This prevents a stiffness-instability and reduces the size of the asymptotic critical regime where non-universality can be observed. Non-universal critical singularities along the critical wetting isotherm are determined by a smaller, effective value of the wetting parameter which slowly approaches its asymptotic limit as the wetting film grows. This is confirmed by numerical simulation of a discretized version of the non-local model.