The critical curves of the random pinning and copolymer models at weak coupling (Q2439711)

The effect of disorder on random walk models has given rise to many random polymer models. This work focuses on two important classes of such models, the so-called pinning and copolymer models. In the pinning model, the disorder is attached to a defect line, which can either attract or repel the random walk path. In the copolymer model, the disorder is distributed along the random walk path, which meanders between two solvents separated by a flat surface. When the disorder is relevant, a fundamental problem for these two models is the asymptotic behavior of the critical curves in the weak coupling regime. The interest of this question lies in the belief that such an asymptotic behavior should be universal, i.e., not depend too much on the fine details of the model. The paper extends the work of Bolthausen, den Hollander and Opoku for copolymer models and investigates the phase diagram when the excursions of the random walk away from the defect line of the pinning model (or the interface of the copolymer model) have a power-law tail with finite mean.