Polymer pinning at an interface (Q855925)

The author considers a \((1+1)\)-dimensional hydrophobic homopolymer, in interaction with an oil-water interface. In \(\mathbb Z^2\), the interface is modelled by the \(x\) axis, the oil is above, the water is below, and the polymer configurations are given by a simple random walk \((S_i)_{i\geq 0}\). The hydrophobicity of each monomer tends to delocalize the polymer in the upper half-plane, through a reward \(h>0\) for each monomer in the oil and a penalty \(-h<0\) for each monomer in the water. On the other hand, the chain receives a random reward (or penalty) when crossing the interface, depending on a local random charge attached to the interface. At site \(i\) this reward is \(\beta(1+s\zeta_i)\), where \((\zeta_i)_{i\geq 1}\) is a sequence of i.i.d. centered random variables, and \(s\geq 0, \beta\geq 0\). Since the reward is positive on average, the interface attracts the polymer and a localization effect may arise. The author transforms the measure of each trajectory with the Hamiltonian \(\beta\Sigma^N_{i=1}(1+s\zeta_i)\mathbf{1}_{\{S_i=0\}}+h\Sigma^N_{i=1} \,\,\,\text{sign}\,\,\,(S_i)\), and studies the critical curve \(h^s_c(\beta)\) that separates the \((\beta, h)\)-plane into a localized and a delocalized phase for \(s\) fixed.