Pinning of polymers and interfaces by random potentials

DOI10.1214/105051606000000015zbMATH Open1145.82010arXivmath/0501028OpenAlexW2004663119MaRDI QIDQ997945FDOQ997945

Kenneth S. Alexander, Vladas Sidoravicius

Publication date: 8 August 2007

Published in: The Annals of Applied Probability (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We consider a polymer, with monomer locations modeled by the trajectory of a Markov chain, in the presence of a potential that interacts with the polymer when it visits a particular site 0. Disorder is introduced by, for example, having the interaction vary from one monomer to another, as a constant $u$ plus i.i.d. mean-0 randomness. There is a critical value of $u$ above which the polymer is pinned, placing a positive fraction of its monomers at 0 with high probability. This critical point may differ for the quenched, annealed and deterministic cases. We show that self-averaging occurs, meaning that the quenched free energy and critical point are nonrandom, off a null set. We evaluate the critical point for a deterministic interaction ($u$ without added randomness) and establish our main result that the critical point in the quenched case is strictly smaller. We show that, for every fixed $uinmathbbR$, pinning occurs at sufficiently low temperatures. If the excursion length distribution has polynomial tails and the interaction does not have a finite exponential moment, then pinning occurs for all $uinmathbbR$ at arbitrary temperature. Our results apply to other mathematically similar situations as well, such as a directed polymer that interacts with a random potential located in a one-dimensional defect, or an interface in two dimensions interacting with a random potential along a wall.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0501028

zbMATH Keywords

disorderinterfacepolymer modelrandom potentialpinning

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Interacting random processes; statistical mechanics type models; percolation theory (60K35) Disordered systems (random Ising models, random Schrödinger operators, etc.) in equilibrium statistical mechanics (82B44) Statistical mechanics of polymers (82D60)

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Cited In (29)

• Copolymer at selective interfaces and pinning potentials: weak coupling limits
• Localization, big-jump regime and the effect of disorder for a class of generalized pinning models
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