Adsorption and collapse transitions in a linear polymer chain near an attractive wall

Abstract

We deduce the qualitative phase diagram of a long flexible neutral polymer chain immersed in a poor solvent near an attracting surface using phenomenological arguments. The actual positions of the phase boundaries are estimated numerically from series expansion up to 19 sites of a self-attracting self-avoiding walk in three dimensions. In two dimensions, we calculate phase boundaries analytically in some cases for a partially directed model. Both the numerical and analytical results corroborate the proposed qualitative phase diagram. © 2002 The American Physical Society.