Trajectories of square lattice staircase polygons

The distribution of monomers in a coating of grafted and adsorbing polymers is modelled using a grafted staircase polygon in the square lattice. The adsorbing staircase polygon consists of a bottom and a top lattice path (branches) and the asymptotic probability density that vertices in the lattice are occupied by these paths is determined. This is a model consisting of two linear polymers grafted to a hard wall in a coating. The probability that either the bottom, or the top, path of a staircase polygon passes through a lattice site with coordinates $(\lfloor \epsilon n \rfloor,\lfloor \delta \sqrt{n}\rfloor)$, for $0 < \epsilon < 1$ and $\delta\geq 0$, is determined asymptotically as $n\to\infty$. This gives the probability density of vertices in the staircase polygon in the scaling limit (as $n\to\infty$): $\displaystyle {\mathbb P}_r^{f,(both)} (\epsilon,\delta) = \frac{\delta^2(15\,\epsilon^2(1 - \epsilon)^2 - 12\, \delta^2 \epsilon(1 - \epsilon) + 4\, \delta^4 ) }{3\sqrt{\pi\,\epsilon^7(1 - \epsilon)^7}} \, e^{-\delta^2/\epsilon(1 - \epsilon)} .$ The densities of other cases, grafted and adsorbed, and at the adsorption critical point (or special point), are also determined. In these cases the most likely and mean trajectories of the paths are determined. The results show that low density regions in the distribution induces entropic forces on test particles which confine them next to the hard wall, or between branches of the staircase polygon. These results give qualitative mechanisms for the stabilisation of a drug particle confined to a polymer coating in a drug delivery system such as a drug-eluding stent covered by a grafted polymer

The escape transition in a self-avoiding walk model of linear polymers

A linear polymer grafted to a hard wall and underneath an AFM tip can be modelled in a lattice as a grafted lattice polymer (or self-avoiding walk) compressed underneath a piston approaching the wall. As the piston approaches the wall the increasingly confined polymer escapes from the confined region to explore conformations beside the piston. This conformational change is believed to be a phase transition in the thermodynamic limit, and has been argued to be first order, based on numerical results in reference [12]. In this paper a lattice self-avoiding walk model of the escape transition is constructed. It is proven that this model has a critical point in the thermodynamic limit corresponding to the escape transition of compressed grafted linear polymers. This result relies on the analysis of ballistic self-avoiding walks in slits and slabs in the square and cubic lattices. Additionally, numerical estimates of the location of the escape transition critical point is reported based on Monte Carlo simulations of self-avoiding walks in slits and in slabs