Polymer pinning at an interface

DOI10.1016/J.SPA.2006.04.003MaRDI QIDQ855925zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Nicolas Pétrélis

Publication date 7 December 2006

Published in Stochastic Processes and their Applications (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0504464

zbMATH Keywords

polymersRandom interactions

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Interacting random processes; statistical mechanics type models; percolation theory (60K35) Processes in random environments (60K37) Random walks, random surfaces, lattice animals, etc. in equilibrium statistical mechanics (82B41) Statistical mechanics of polymers (82D60)

Abstract: In this article, I study the localization transition of an hydrophobic homopolymer in interaction with an interface between oil and water. To that aim I consider a model in which the trajectories of a simple random walk play the role of the possible configurations of the polymer. The chain gains an energetic factor for every monomer it puts in the oil and receives a random price of positive average each time it touches the origin. So a competition arises between this two effects to know wether the chain is delocalized in the oil or if it stays localized in the neighborhood of the interface. As usual a critical curve divides the phase spaces in a localized and a delocalized area, and the point of my paper is to develop a new strategy to bound this critical curve by below. To achieve this result I take into account the fact that the polymer can target the sites where it comes back to the origin to receive prices as high as possible.

Review text

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.

Recommendations

• Localization transition for a polymer near an interface
• Estimates on path delocalization for copolymers at selective interfaces
• Heteropolymers in a solvent at an interface
• Phase transitions for spatially extended pinning
• Periodic copolymers at selective interfaces: a large deviations approach

Cites work

• A heteropolymer near a linear interface
• A simple coupling of renewal processes
• Effect of disorder on two-dimensional wetting
• Estimates on path delocalization for copolymers at selective interfaces
• Exact critical behavior of two-dimensional wetting problems with quenched disorder.
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 482642 (Why is no real title available?)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3892344 (Why is no real title available?)
• Localization of a random copolymer at an interface: an exact enumeration study
• Localization transition for a polymer near an interface
• On the localization transition of random copolymers near selective interfaces
• Pinning by a sparse potential
• Weakly pinned random walk on the wall: pathwise descriptions of the phase transition.

Cited in

(8)

• On the localized phase of a copolymer in an emulsion: Subcritical percolation regime
• Localization transition for a polymer near an interface
• Diffusion of a heteropolymer in a multi-interface medium
• Phase transitions for spatially extended pinning
• Pinning and wetting models for polymers with ( + )-interaction
• On the localized phase of a copolymer in an emulsion: Supercritical percolation regime
• Copolymer at selective interfaces and pinning potentials: weak coupling limits
• A polymer in a multi-interface medium

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