Reentrant layering in rare gas adsorption: preroughening or premelting?

The reentrant layering transition found in rare gas adsorption on solid substrates has conflictually been explained in terms either of preroughening (PR) or of top layer melting-solidification phenomena. We obtain adsorption isotherms of Lennard-Jones particles on an attractive substrate by off lattice grand canonical Monte Carlo simulation, and reproduce reentrant layering. Microscopic analysis confirms a transformation of the top surface layer from solid to quasiliquid across the transition. At the same time, however, the surface coverage is found to switch from close to one to close to half, the latter indicating a disordered flat surface and establishing PR as the underlying mechanism. We conclude that top layer melting can trigger PR. In turn, PR appears to act as the threshold transition for surface melting in rare gas solids.