New surface and layering phase diagrams are proposed based on generalized sine-Gordon models with and without a substrate potential. In particular, we find that the preroughening transition can be driven first order, explaining “zipper” features in heat capacity data for argon and krypton on graphite substrates. For different parameters, we predict the existence of a novel variant of den Nijs' disordered flat phase with spontaneously broken particle-hole symmetry and continuously varying surface height with an accompanying intermeshing layering phase diagram. The restricted solid-on-solid model displays zippering for sufficiently large second neighbor coupling.
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