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Assume the pinning coefficient $t>0$. Here $t$ belongs to an actual energy, so its Boltzmann coefficient is $\beta t$. The quadratic kernel and covariance becomeTherefore the pinned capillary-wave correlation isThe normal-translation symmetry is now explicitly broken, and the formerly massless Goldstone mode has a restoring term. For $r\ll \xi$, but beyond the microscopic cutoff, the unpinned behavior is recovered. For $r\gg \xi$, the connected height covariance decays and $B_t$ approaches $2⟨h^2⟩$, so roughness no longer grows without bound even for $d=2,3$.

In internal dimension one the exact continuum answer isIn internal dimension two the connected covariance at $r>0$ is $k_{B}T{K}_0(r/\xi )/(2\pi \sigma )$, where $K_0$ is a modified Bessel function; its zero-separation value needs the cutoff and the saturation value grows as $(k_{B}T/\pi \sigma )\log (\xi /a)$ for $\xi \gg a$. In internal dimension three the connected covariance is approximately $k_{B}T{e}^{-r/\xi }/(4\pi \sigma r)$ beyond the cutoff. Thus pinning replaces the long-distance massless tails by exponential decay. A negative $t$ would destabilize the quadratic statistical Hamiltonian rather than bind the membrane.