Asymptotic behavior of the entropy of chains placed on stripes

Abstract

By using the transfer matrix approach, we investigate the asymptotic behavior of the entropy of flexible chains with $M$ monomers each placed on stripes. In the limit of high density of monomers, we study the behavior of the entropy as a function of the density of monomers and the width of the stripe, inspired by recent analytical studies of this problem for the particular case of dimers (M=2). We obtain the entropy in the asymptotic regime of high densities for chains with $M=2,..,9$ monomers, as well as for the special case of polymers, where $M\to\infty$, and find that the results show a regular behavior similar to the one found analytically for dimers. We also verify that in the low-density limit the mean-field expression for the entropy is followed by the results from our transfer matrix calculations.