Self-avoiding walks pulled at an angle

TL;DR

This paper studies how polymers behave when pulled at different angles from a surface using self-avoiding walk models, revealing complex phase behaviors and re-entrance phenomena through Monte Carlo simulations.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive phase diagram for angled pulling of polymers, extending previous models to include angle dependence and confirming results with exact solutions.

Findings

Re-entrance observed at low temperatures for vertical pulls in 3D.

Phase diagram varies significantly with angle, temperature, and force.

Results align with previously studied exactly solvable lattice models.

Abstract

We investigate polymers pulled away from an interacting surface, where the force is applied to the untethered endpoint and at an angle $\theta$ to the surface. We use the canonical self-avoiding walk model of polymers and obtain the phase diagram of the model using Monte Carlo simulations for a range of angles, temperatures and force magnitudes. The phase diagram of the model displays re-entrance at low temperatures for three-dimensional walks when the pulling is more vertical than horizontal. Our results agree with various exactly solvable lattice models that have been previously studied.