Influence of lattice disorder on the structure of persistent polymer chains

TL;DR

This study investigates how lattice disorder affects the static properties of semiflexible polymers using computer simulations, revealing that polymer stiffness and lattice structure significantly influence polymer behavior in disordered environments.

Contribution

It introduces a combined simulation approach to analyze the impact of disorder and stiffness on polymer structure, highlighting the role of an additional length scale.

Findings

Polymer response varies between contraction and extension based on stiffness and void size.

Lattice periodicity influences polymer observables.

Polymer stiffness extends the phenomenology of disorder effects.

Abstract

We study the static properties of a semiflexible polymer exposed to a quenched random environment by means of computer simulations. The polymer is modeled as two-dimensional Heisenberg chain. For the random environment we consider hard disks arranged on a square lattice. We apply an off-lattice growth algorithm as well as the multicanonical Monte Carlo method to investigate the influence of both disorder occupation probability and polymer stiffness on the equilibrium properties of the polymer. We show that the additional length scale induced by the stiffness of the polymer extends the well-known phenomenology considerably. The polymer's response to the disorder is either contraction or extension depending on the ratio of polymer stiffness and void space extension. Additionally, the periodic structure of the lattice is reflected in the observables that characterize the polymer.