The confinement free energies of non-ideal branched polymers and ideal unbranched polymers are the same
arXiv:0801.0611 · doi:10.1209/0295-5075/82/46003
Abstract
We use the method of dimensional reduction to show that a branching polymer with excluded volume interaction confined between two flat plates has, in the thermodynamic limit, a confinement free energy and density profile that is the same as that of an ideal linear polymer with the same number of monomers and the same monomer-plate interaction potential. Condensation due to branching is exactly compensated by swelling due to excluded volume interaction.
12 pages, no figures