Localization transition for a polymer near an interface (Q1370230)

The authors study the localization-delocalization transition for a two-dimensional directed heteropolymer consisting of hydrophylic and hydrophobic monomers near an ``oil-water'' interface. Depending on the interaction, the polymer either stays near the interface (localizes) or wanders away from it (delocalizes). The problem of studying this transition was posed by \textit{Garel, Huse, Leibler}, and \textit{Orland} [Europhys. Lett. 8, 9-13 (1989)]; a particular answer was given by \textit{Ya. G. Sinaj} [Theory Probab. Appl. 38, No. 2, 382-385 (1993); translation from Teor. Veroyatn. Primen. 38, No. 2, 457-460 (1993; Zbl 0807.60069)]. Formally, let \((i,S_i)_{i\geq0}\) be a trajectory of a simple random walk \(S_i\) on \({\mathbf Z}^1\) (\(S_0=0\)). For a sequence \((\omega_i)_{i\geq0}\) of i.i.d. random variables taking values \(\pm1\) with probability \(1/2\) and two parameters \(\lambda\in[0,+\infty)\) and \(h\in[0,1)\), define a transformed distribution \(Q_n^{\lambda,h,\omega}\) on the set of \(n\)-step paths with the weight factors \(\exp\{\lambda\sum_{i=1}^n(\omega_i+h)\text{sign}(S_i)\}\). Here, \(\lambda\) plays the role of the inverse temperature, \(\omega_i=+1\) and \(\omega_i=-1\) correspond to hydrophobic and hydrophylic monomers, respectively (i.e., ``water'' is the lower halfplane of \({\mathbf Z}^2\)), and \(h\) measures the difference in interaction strength for different types of monomers. In the symmetric case (\(h=0\), \(\lambda>0\)) the measure \(Q_n^{\lambda,0,\omega}\) ``encourages matches'' \(\omega_iS_i>0\) equally for all monomers and, as a result, the polymer is localized near the interface (Sinaj, loc. cit.). It is natural to expect the same phenomenon for sufficiently small \(h\) as well. The main result of the present paper verifies this hypothesis. Based on the study of the free energy of this model as \(n\to\infty\), the authors prove the existence of a critical curve \(\lambda\to h_c(\lambda)\) separating localized (\(h<h_c(\lambda)\)) and delocalized (\(h\geq h_c(\lambda)\)) behaviour. They also establish some properties of this curve, in particular, its behaviour as \(\lambda\searrow0\). The latter is based on the fact that as \(\lambda\), \(h\searrow0\) the free energy of the model scales to its Brownian motion analogue.