Crumpled-to-tubule transition in anisotropic polymerized membranes: beyond the ϵ expansion

Phys Rev Lett. 2011 Mar 25;106(12):128102. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.128102. Epub 2011 Mar 21.

Abstract

Anisotropic D-dimensional polymerized phantom membranes are investigated within a nonperturbative renormalization group framework. One focuses on the transition between a high-temperature, crumpled phase and a low-temperature, tubular phase where the membrane is flat along one direction and crumpled along the other ones. While the upper critical dimension--D(uc)=5/2--is close to D=2, the weak-coupling perturbative approach is qualitatively and quantitatively wrong. We show that our approach is free of the problems encountered within the perturbative framework and provides physically meaningful critical quantities.