English

Surface critical exponents at a discontinuous bulk transition

Statistical Mechanics 2014-02-07 v1

Abstract

Systems with a bulk first-order transition can display diverging correlation lengths close to a surface. This surface induced disordering yields a special type of surface criticality. Using extensive numerical simulations we study surface quantities in the two-dimensional Potts model with a large number of states qq which undergoes a discontinuous bulk transition. The surface critical exponents are thereby found to depend on the value of qq, which is in contrast to prior claims that these exponents should be universal and independent of qq. It follows that surface induced disordering at first-order transitions is characterized by exponents that depend on the details of the model.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1311.3197,
  title  = {Surface critical exponents at a discontinuous bulk transition},
  author = {Linjun Li and Michel Pleimling},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1311.3197},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

16 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Physical Review B

R2 v1 2026-06-22T02:06:48.971Z