Critical and geometric properties of magnetic polymers across the globule-coil transition

Abstract

We study a lattice model of a single magnetic polymer chain, where Ising spins are located on the sites of a lattice self-avoiding walk in $d=2$. We consider the regime where both conformations and magnetic degrees of freedom are dynamic, thus the Ising model is defined on a dynamic lattice and conformations generate an annealed disorder. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we characterize the globule-coil and ferromaget-to-paramagnet transitions, which occur simultaneously at a critical value of the spin-spin coupling. We argue that the transition is continuous - in contrast to $d=3$ where it is first-order. Our results suggest that at the transition the metric exponent takes the theta-polymer value $\nu=4/7$ but the crossover exponent $\phi \approx 0.7$, which differs from the expected value for a $\theta$-polymer.