Examination of the necessity of complete wetting near critical points in systems with long-range forces

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Abstract
Cahn’s general argument for complete wetting in the vicinity of critical points is critically reviewed. Critical-point wetting does occur in systems with short-range (exponentially decaying) forces. Whenever short-range forces favor wetting, while at the same time there is a tendency towards drying due to weak long-range (algebraically decaying) forces, neither critical-point wetting nor drying takes place. In this case the thickness of the partial wetting layer diverges as the bulk correlation length upon approach of the critical point.