On the probability of staying above a wall for the \((2+1)\)-dimensional SOS model at low temperature (Q892167)

Let \(\mathbb{P}_\Lambda\) be the Gibbs measure of the \((2+1)\)-dimensional SOS model on a box \(\Lambda\subset \mathbb{Z}^2\) with zero boundary condition. The configurations are discrete height functions \(\eta:\Lambda\mapsto \mathbb{Z}\) with \(\eta(x)=0\) for \(x\notin\Lambda\). The probability measure is given by \[ \mathbb{P}(\eta)=\frac{\exp(-\beta\sum_{|x-y|=1}|\eta(x)-\eta(y)|)}{Z_\Lambda}, \] where \(\beta>0\) is the inverse temperature and \(Z_\Lambda\) is the partition function. This paper mostly considers the case \(\Lambda=\Lambda_L=[-L, L]^2\cap\mathbb{Z}^2\), the square of sidelenght \(2L\) in \(\mathbb{Z}^2\) centered at the origin. It is well known that if \(\beta\) is large enough, the limit of \(\mathbb{P}_{\Lambda_L}\) as \(L\to\infty\) exists and is denoted by \(\mathbb{P}\). In this paper, the authors show that there exists \(\beta_0>0\) such that for all \(\beta\geq \beta_0\), \[ \lim_{L\to\infty}\frac 1{L\log L}\log\mathbb{P}_{\Lambda_L}(\eta(x)\geq 0 \text{ for every } x\in \Lambda_L)=-2\tau_\beta(0), \] where \(\tau_\beta(0)\) is the surface tension at zero tilt. (The same limit also holds if one replaces \(\mathbb{P}_{\Lambda_L}\) by \(\mathbb{P}\)). This behavior is qualitatively different from the one found for continuous height massless gradient interface models. The main ingredient of this paper is an iterative monotonicity argument based on the FKG properties the the SOS model.