A facet is not an island: step-step interactions and the fluctuations of the boundary of a crystal facet

In a recent paper [Ferrari et al., Phys. Rev. E 69, 035102(R) (2004)], the scaling law of the fluctuations of the step limiting a crystal facet has been computed as a function of the facet size. Ferrari et al. use rigorous, but physically rather obscure, arguments. Approaching the problem from a different perspective, we rederive more transparently the scaling behavior of facet edge fluctuations as a function of time. Such behavior can be scrutinized with STM experiments and with numerical simulations.