On the conformational transition of a selfhyphen;avoiding walk adsorbed at an interface

摘要

The conformational transition of a selfhyphen;avoiding walk at an interface, between nonadsorbed and adsorbed states, is investigated by means of extended numerical data in the asymptotic limit, for fivehyphen;choice and fourhyphen;choice walks on the simple cubic lattice, up to 14 and 16 steps, respectively. Givenx= exp(bgr;egr;), where egr; is the energy per adsorbed segment (bgr; = 1/kT), the location of the transition is found to bexast; = 1.485 (five choice) andxast; = 1.502 (four choice). The nature of the transition is also investigated and it is shown that the mean fraction of adsorbed segmentsyn(x), in the limit of infiniten, tends to 0 belowxast; and toAlsqb;ln(x/xast;)rsqb;agr;abovexast;, with agr;quest;0.35ndash;0.40. The mean thickness (perpendicular to the surface) and the mean spread (parallel to the surface) of the walks are also discussed.