Condensed Matter Physics, 2014, vol. 17, No. 3, p. 33604:1-11
DOI:10.5488/CMP.17.33604

Title: Polymers in disordered environments
Author(s):
  V. Blavatska (Institute for Condensed Matter Physics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 79011 Lviv, Ukraine) ,
  N. Fricke (Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Leipzig, Postfach 100 920, 04009 Leipzig, Germany) ,
  W. Janke (Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Leipzig, Postfach 100 920, 04009 Leipzig, Germany; Centre for Theoretical Sciences (NTZ), Universität Leipzig, Postfach 100 920, 04009 Leipzig, Germany)

A brief review of our recent studies aiming at a better understanding of the scaling behaviour of polymers in disordered environments is given. The main emphasis is on a simple generic model where the polymers are represented by (interacting) self-avoiding walks and the disordered environment by critical percolation clusters. The scaling behaviour of the number of conformations and their average spatial extent as a function of the number of monomers and the associated critical exponents γ and ν are examined with two complementary approaches: numerical chain-growth computer simulations using the PERM algorithm and complete enumerations of all possible polymer conformations employing a recently developed very efficient exact counting method.

Key words: self-avoiding walks, percolation clusters, PERM chain-growth computer simulations, exact enumerations
PACS: 64.60.al, 07.05.Tp, 64.60.ah


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