Self-avoiding walks adsorbed at a surface and subject to a force

Abstract

We consider self-avoiding walks terminally attached to an impenetrable surface at which they can adsorb. We call the vertices farthest away from this plane the top vertices and we consider applying a force at the plane containing the top vertices. This force can be directed away from the adsorbing surface or towards it. In both cases we prove that the free energy (in the thermodynamic limit) is identical to the free energy when the force is applied at the last vertex. This means that the criterion determining the critical force - temperature curve is identical for the two ways in which the force is applied and the response to pushing the walk is also the same in the two cases.

References in corpus (4)

• Force-induced desorption of a linear polymer chain adsorbed on an attractive surface
• Compressed self-avoiding walks, bridges and polygons
• Self-avoiding walks subject to a force
• The critical pulling force for self-avoiding walks

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Self-avoiding walks adsorbed at a surface and pulled at their mid-point
• Phase transitions in single macromolecules: loop-stretch transition versus loop adsorption transition in end-grafted polymer chains
• Force-induced desorption of uniform block copolymers
• Critical behaviour of the extended-ballistic transition for pulled self-avoiding walks