We study the specific heat of the $x$- $y$ model on lattices $L\times L\times H$ with $L\gg H$ (i.e., on lattices representing a film geometry) using the cluster Monte Carlo method. In the $H$ direction we apply Dirichlet boundary conditions so that the order parameter in the top and bottom layers is zero. We find that our results for the specific heat of various thickness size $H$ collapse on the same universal scaling function. The extracted scaling function of the specific heat is in good agreement with the experimentally determined universal scaling function using no free parameters.

• Received 17 March 1995

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.75.2710