The limit shape and emergence of the Discrete Gaussian level lines

Abstract

Consider the $(2+1)$D Discrete Gaussian model (ZGFF) on an $L\times L$ box with a hard floor at height zero and zero boundary conditions, at low temperature. The second author, Martinelli and Sly (2016) showed that the surface has a plateau, filling nearly the full square, at height either $H$ or $H+1$ for an explicit function $H(L)$. In a companion paper, we studied the local laws of the top level lines near the four sides of the box, and showed that after rescaling each by $(L^{2/3-o(1)},L^{1/3-o(1)})$, they converge to a product of Ferrari--Spohn diffusions. Two key features of the top level lines remained unaddressed: their global limit shape, and the critical window marking the transition from a top plateau at height $H$ to one at height $H+1$. These features are intrinsically linked: deriving the global limit of the top level line is needed for determining whether it is preferable to be at height $H$ or $H+1$ near criticality. This work completes this picture as follows. First, we obtain the global limit of the top level lines: for every fixed $n$, the $n$-th from-the-top level line converges in Hausdorff distance to a deterministic shape $\mathscr{L}_n$ that features the Wulff shape at scale $N_n=L^{1-o(1)}$ near the four corners of the box. Second, we identify, for every $h$, the point of emergence of a macroscopic $h$ level line: the probability of this event is monotone increasing in $L$ (up to a $o(1)$ error), and undergoes a sharp transition from near $0$ to near $1$ in a critical window of width $\leq L^{1/2+o(1)}$ around a side length $L=L_c^{(h)}$. This transition is discontinuous in that, once a macroscopic level $h$ emerges, it immediately occupies nearly all the box, and the above global and local scaling limits (Wulff, Ferrari--Spohn) hold for it. The new results extend to the $(2+1)$D $|\nablaϕ|^p$-models (ZGFF is the case $p=2$) for every fixed $p> 1$.