Speaker: 

Professor Marek Biskup

Institution: 

UCLA

Time: 

Tuesday, February 21, 2006 - 11:00pm

Location: 

MSTB 254

A gradient Gibbs measure is the projection to the gradient variables $\eta_b=\phi_y-\phi_x$
of the Gibbs measure of the form
$$
P(\textd\phi)=Z^{-1}\exp\Bigl\{-\beta\sum_{\langle x,y\rangle}V(\phi_y-\phi_x)\Bigr\}\textd\phi,
$$
where $V$ is a potential, $\beta$ is the inverse temperature and $\textd\phi$ is the product
Lebesgue measure. The simplest example is the (lattice) Gaussian free field
$V(\eta)=\frac12\kappa\eta^2$. A well known result of Funaki and Spohn (and Sheffield)
asserts that, for any uniformly-convex $V$, the possible infinite-volume measures of this type are
characterized by the \emph{tilt}, which is a vector $u\in\R^d$ such that
$E(\eta_b)=u\cdot b$ for any (oriented) edge $b$. I will discuss a simple example
for which this result fails once $V$ is sufficiently non-convex thus showing that
the conditions of Funaki-Spohn's theory are generally optimal. The underlying
mechanism is an order-disorder phase transition known, e.g., from the context
of the $q$-state Potts model with sufficiently large $q$. Based on joint work
with Roman Koteck\'y.