First Order Phase Transition of a Long Polymer Chain

Abstract

We consider a model consisting of a self-avoiding polygon occupying a variable density of the sites of a square lattice. A fixed energy is associated with each $90^\circ$-bend of the polygon. We use a grand canonical ensemble, introducing parameters $μ$ and $β$ to control average density and average (total) energy of the polygon, and show by Monte Carlo simulation that the model has a first order, nematic phase transition across a curve in the $β$-$μ$ plane.

11 pages, 7 figures