Polymers in anisotropic environment with extended defects

TL;DR

This paper investigates how flexible polymers behave in environments with extended, anisotropic defects, using analytical methods and numerical simulations to understand their conformational properties and scaling behavior.

Contribution

It combines analytical renormalization techniques with numerical simulations to analyze polymer conformations in environments with correlated extended defects, providing new insights into their scaling exponents.

Findings

Estimated scaling exponents for polymers with parallel rod-like defects

Derived universal shape parameters for polymers in anisotropic environments

Validated analytical results with numerical simulations using PERM

Abstract

The conformational properties of flexible polymers in d dimensions in environments with extended defects are analyzed both analytically and numerically. We consider the case, when structural defects are correlated in \varepsilon_d dimensions and randomly distributed in the remaining d-\varepsilon_d. Within the lattice model of self-avoiding random walks (SAW), we apply the pruned enriched Rosenbluth method (PERM) and find the estimates for scaling exponents and universal shape parameters of polymers in environment with parallel rod-like defects (\varepsilon_d=1). An analytical description of the model is developed within the des Cloizeaux direct polymer renormalization scheme.