Critical adsorption profiles around a sphere and a cylinder in a fluid at criticality: Local functional theory.

Abstract

We study universal critical adsorption on a solid sphere and a solid cylinder in a fluid at bulk criticality, where preferential adsorption occurs. We use a local functional theory proposed by Fisher et al. [M. E. Fisher and P. G. de Gennes, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris Ser. B 287, 207 (1978); M. E. Fisher and H. Au-Yang, Physica A 101, 255 (1980)PHYADX0378-437110.1016/0378-4371(80)90112-0]. We calculate the mean order parameter profile ψ(r), where r is the distance from the sphere center and the cylinder axis, respectively. The resultant differential equation for ψ(r) is solved exactly around a sphere and numerically around a cylinder. A strong adsorption regime is realized except for very small surface field h_{1}, where the surface order parameter ψ(a) is determined by h_{1} and is independent of the radius a. If r considerably exceeds a, ψ(r) decays as r^{-(1+η)} for a sphere and r^{-(1+η)/2} for a cylinder in three dimensions, where η is the critical exponent in the order parameter correlation at bulk criticality.