MEAN END-TO-END DISTANCE OF BRANCHED POLYMERS

The author uses Monte Carlo methods to calculate the mean end-to-end distance of randomly branched polymer molecules. Molecular realisations are brown on the square and simple cubic lattices, and consist of N bifunctional monomers and Nf polyfunctional branching units of functionality f. Three cases are treated in which the monomer branches are either random walks, self-avoiding walks (SAW), or SAW's except that different branches may join at their end points to form closed loops.