Metastability cascades and prewetting in the SOS model

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Main Authors: Gheissari, Reza, Lubetzky, Eyal
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Gheissari, Reza
Lubetzky, Eyal
author_facet Gheissari, Reza
Lubetzky, Eyal
contents We study Glauber dynamics for the low temperature $(2+1)$D Solid-On-Solid model on a box of side-length $n$ with a floor at height $0$ (inducing entropic repulsion) and a competing bulk external field $λ$ pointing down (the prewetting problem). In 1996, Cesi and Martinelli showed that if the inverse-temperature $β$ is large enough, then along a decreasing sequence of critical points $(λ_c^{(k)})_{k=0}^{K_β}$ the dynamics is torpid: its inverse spectral gap is $O(1)$ when $λ\in (λ_c^{(k+1)},λ_c^{(k)})$ whereas it is $\exp[Θ(n)]$ at each $λ_c^{(k)}$ for each $k\leq K_β$, due to a coexistence of rigid phases at heights $k+1$ and $k$. Our focus is understanding (a) the onset of metastability as $λ_n\uparrowλ_c^{(k)}$; and (b) the effect of an unbounded number of layers, as we remove the restriction $k\le K_β$, and even allow for $λ_n\to 0$ towards the $λ= 0$ case which has $O(\log n)$ layers and was studied by Caputo et al. (2014). We show that for any $k$, possibly growing with $n$, the inverse gap is $\exp[\tildeΘ(1/|λ_n-λ_c^{(k)}|)]$ as $λ\uparrow λ_c^{(k)}$ up to distance $n^{-1+o(1)}$ from this critical point, due to a metastable layer at height $k$ on the way to forming the desired layer at height $k+1$. By taking $λ_n = n^{-α}$ (corresponding to $k_n\asymp \log n$), this also interpolates down to the behavior of the dynamics when $λ=0$. We complement this by extending the fast mixing to all $λ$ uniformly bounded away from $(λ_c^{(k)})_{k=0}^\infty$. Together, these results provide a sharp understanding of the predicted infinite sequence of dynamical phase transitions governed by the layering phenomenon.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2307_16866
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Metastability cascades and prewetting in the SOS model
Gheissari, Reza
Lubetzky, Eyal
Probability
Mathematical Physics
60K35, 82B20, 82B24, 82C20
We study Glauber dynamics for the low temperature $(2+1)$D Solid-On-Solid model on a box of side-length $n$ with a floor at height $0$ (inducing entropic repulsion) and a competing bulk external field $λ$ pointing down (the prewetting problem). In 1996, Cesi and Martinelli showed that if the inverse-temperature $β$ is large enough, then along a decreasing sequence of critical points $(λ_c^{(k)})_{k=0}^{K_β}$ the dynamics is torpid: its inverse spectral gap is $O(1)$ when $λ\in (λ_c^{(k+1)},λ_c^{(k)})$ whereas it is $\exp[Θ(n)]$ at each $λ_c^{(k)}$ for each $k\leq K_β$, due to a coexistence of rigid phases at heights $k+1$ and $k$. Our focus is understanding (a) the onset of metastability as $λ_n\uparrowλ_c^{(k)}$; and (b) the effect of an unbounded number of layers, as we remove the restriction $k\le K_β$, and even allow for $λ_n\to 0$ towards the $λ= 0$ case which has $O(\log n)$ layers and was studied by Caputo et al. (2014). We show that for any $k$, possibly growing with $n$, the inverse gap is $\exp[\tildeΘ(1/|λ_n-λ_c^{(k)}|)]$ as $λ\uparrow λ_c^{(k)}$ up to distance $n^{-1+o(1)}$ from this critical point, due to a metastable layer at height $k$ on the way to forming the desired layer at height $k+1$. By taking $λ_n = n^{-α}$ (corresponding to $k_n\asymp \log n$), this also interpolates down to the behavior of the dynamics when $λ=0$. We complement this by extending the fast mixing to all $λ$ uniformly bounded away from $(λ_c^{(k)})_{k=0}^\infty$. Together, these results provide a sharp understanding of the predicted infinite sequence of dynamical phase transitions governed by the layering phenomenon.
title Metastability cascades and prewetting in the SOS model
topic Probability
Mathematical Physics
60K35, 82B20, 82B24, 82C20
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.16866