The mean-field adsorption on a sinusoidally corrugated substrate revised

The fluid system at the bulk liquid-gas coexistence in a presence of a sinusoidally corrugated substrate exhibits not only the wetting transition, but additionally a first-order, thin-thick transition. The mean-field analysis of this transition based on a simple effective Hamiltonian is valid only in long wavelength limit. In this case the filling transition occurs so close to the wetting temperature, that the behavior of the interface is dominated by fluctuations, therefore the mean-field approach breaks down. We analyze the filling transition with the help of Hamiltonian evaluated from Landau theory. The applicability of our Hamiltonian is not restricted only to the vicinity of the wetting point. We obtain the phase diagram valid beyond the temperature range corresponding to the strong fluctuations regime. It displays more complex dependence on different length scales of the system and includes the old one as a particular case. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.