“…First, the GFF is believed to be a universal scaling limit for various models of random surfaces in R 3 . Now the appearance of the GFF is rigorously proved for several models of random stepped surfaces; see Kenyon [54], Borodin-Ferrari [14], Petrov [71], Duits [28], Kuan [61], Chhita-Johansson-Young [22], and Borodin-Bufetov [11]. On the other hand, it is known that random matrix ensembles forˇD 2 can be obtained as a certain limit of stepped surfaces; see Okounkov-Reshetikhin [68], Johansson-Nordenstam [53], Fleming-Forrester-Nordenstam [34], Gorin [42,43], and Gorin-Panova [44].…”