Pressure exerted by a grafted polymer on the limiting line of a semi-infinite square lattice

TL;DR

This study uses exact enumeration of self-avoiding walks to analyze the pressure exerted by a grafted polymer on a boundary, revealing a universal power-law decay similar to Gaussian chains regardless of excluded volume effects.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of inhomogeneous pressure exerted by a grafted polymer on a boundary using exact enumeration methods.

Findings

Pressure decays as a power-law with distance from the grafting point.

Decay exponent is similar to that of Gaussian chains.

Excluded volume effects do not alter the asymptotic decay behavior.

Abstract

Using exact enumerations of self-avoiding walks (SAWs) we compute the inhomogeneous pressure exerted by a two-dimensional end-grafted polymer on the grafting line which limits a semi-infinite square lattice. The results for SAWs show that the asymptotic decay of the pressure as a function of the distance to the grafting point follows a power-law with an exponent similar to that of gaussian chains and is, in this sense, independent of excluded volume effects.