Pulling adsorbed self-avoiding walks from a surface

Abstract

We consider a self-avoiding walk model of polymer adsorption where the adsorbed polymer can be desorbed by the application of a force, concentrating on the case of the square lattice. Using series analysis methods we investigate the behaviour of the free energy of the system when there is an attractive potential $\epsilon$ with the surface and a force $f$ applied at the last vertex, normal to the surface, and extract the phase boundary between the ballistic and adsorbed phases. We believe this to be exact to graphical accuracy. We give precise estimates of the location of the transition from the free phase to the ballistic phase, which we find to be at $y_c=\exp(f/k_B T_c)=1$, and from the free phase to the adsorbed phase, which we estimate to be at $a_c=\exp(-\epsilon/k_B T_c)=1.775615 \pm 0.000005$. In addition we prove that the phase transition from the ballistic to the adsorbed phase is first order.