Condensed Matter Physics Seminar: Polymers in scale-free spaces

Abstract:

One of the attractive features of polymer physics is the relation between the statistics of long polymers and the theory of continuous phase transitions in magnetic systems. The polymers show critical features such as universality, which means that close to the critical point, when the number of monomers is large, some properties of the polymers become independent of most of the details of the system.

The absence of a characteristic length scale in critical phenomena leads to the existence of power laws and critical exponents. We can expect the system to maintain its critical features when a scale-free boundary, such as an infinite cone or wedge is introduced. We study the dependence of universal properties of the polymers on the shape of the surface.

In my talk I will present analytical results for ideal polymers in scale-free spaces and numerical results for self-avoiding polymers. I will also discuss the difficulties in simulating long polymers and some new approaches to the problem.

Seminar Organizer: Dr. Eran Sela