Depinning of a polymer in a multi-interface medium
Abstract
In this paper we consider a model which describes a polymer chain interacting with an infinity of equi-spaced linear interfaces. The distance between two consecutive interfaces is denoted by T = T_N and is allowed to grow with the size N of the polymer. When the polymer receives a positive reward for touching the interfaces, its asymptotic behavior has been derived in a previous paper, showing that a transition occurs when T_N \approx log(N). In the present paper, we deal with the so-called depinning case, i.e., the polymer is repelled rather than attracted by the interfaces. Using techniques from renewal theory, we determine the scaling behavior of the model for large N as a function of T_N, showing that two transitions occur, when T_N \approx N^{1/3} and when T_N \approx N^{1/2} respectively.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0901.2902,
title = {Depinning of a polymer in a multi-interface medium},
author = {Francesco Caravenna and Nicolas Pétrélis},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0901.2902},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
27 pages, 2 figures