DE GENNES LIMIT: FROM SPIN STATISTICS TO THE MACROMOLECULES

Yurij Holovatch (Personal webpage)

In this lecture I will show how statistics of the (generalized) Ising model is connected to statistics of self-avoiding walks (SAWs). This analogy was first realized in early 70-ies mainly to works of P.G. de Gennes [1] and now the limit n → 0 of the n-vector model is often called the polymer of SAW limit. It is well known that the conformation properties of long flexible polymer chains in a good solvent are governed by power laws (scaling laws). The seek for the form of these laws lead not only to the creation of modern theoretical physics and chemistry of polymers, but also enabled to discover a deep connection between the physics of critical phenomena and the physics of macromolecules. These and related questions are the subject of my lecture [2].