The 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 analytically phase boundaries in some cases for a partially directed model. Both the numerical as well as analytical results corroborate the proposed qualitative phase diagram.