Adsorbed self-avoiding walks subject to a force

Abstract

We consider a self-avoiding walk model of polymer adsorption where the adsorbed polymer can be desorbed by the application of a force. In this paper the force is applied normal to the surface at the last vertex of the walk. We prove that the appropriate limiting free energy exists where there is an applied force and a surface potential term, and prove that this free energy is convex in appropriate variables. We then derive an expression for the limiting free energy in terms of the free energy without a force and the free energy with no surface interaction. Finally we show that there is a phase boundary between the adsorbed phase and the desorbed phase in the presence of a force, prove some qualitative properties of this boundary and derive bounds on the location of the boundary.

References in corpus (1)

• Forcing Adsorption of a Tethered Polymer by Pulling

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Phase transitions in single macromolecules: loop-stretch transition versus loop adsorption transition in end-grafted polymer chains
• Attractive and repulsive polymer-mediated forces between scale-free surfaces
• Force-induced desorption of uniform block copolymers
• Critical behaviour of the extended-ballistic transition for pulled self-avoiding walks
• Self-avoiding walks pulled at an angle
• Lattice polymers near a permeable interface