The self-interaction of a fluid interface, the wavevector dependent surface tension and wedge filling

We argue that whenever an interface, separating bulk fluid phases, adopts a non-planar configuration (induced by a confining geometry or thermal fluctuations, say), the energy cost of it will contain a non-local self-interaction term. For systems with short-ranged forces and Ising symmetry, we determine the self-interaction by integrating out bulk-like degrees of freedom from a more microscopic Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson model. The self-interaction can be written in a simple diagrammatic form involving integrals over effective two-body forces acting at the interface and consistently accounts for a number of known features of the microscopic model, including the wavevector dependence of the surface tension describing the fluctuations of a near planar interface. When applied to wedge filling transitions, the self-interaction describes the attraction between the wetting films on either side of the wedge. We show that, for sufficiently acute wedges, this can alter the order of the filling phase transition.