Semiflexible polymer chains on the square lattice: Numerical study of critical exponents

Abstract

We have studied the statistics of semiflexible linear polymer chains modeled by self-avoiding random walk (SAW) on the square lattice. We applied the PERM Monte Carlo simulation method to sample the polymer chain configurations for SAWs up to 2000 steps. Varying the stiffness parameter s of the chain we have calculated numerically the critical exponents ν (associated with the mean squared end-to-end distance of polymer chain) and γ (associated with the partition function of polymer chain system), as well as the growth constant μ. We find a clear numerical evidence that, in the studied region of s, both critical exponents (ν and γ) do not depend on polymer flexibility. Besides, for moderately flexible chains, we show that the growth constant μ displays a linear dependance on the stiffness parameter s. We discuss and relate our findings to those obtained previously for Euclidean and fractal polymer containers.