Publication : t87/105

Abstract:
A model of two-dimensional random surfaces with extrinsic curvature energy is studied in the limit where the dimension of bulk space d is large. The large-d effective potential is constructed. For large surface tension the ground state is homogeneous and its properties are studied. For small enough surface tension, non-perturbative instabilities which break translation invariance in the plane of the membrane are shown to occur for large but finite wavelength. The relationships between this model, the bosonic string, the Liouville model and lattice random surface models are discussed.

t87-105.pdf