MONTE-CARLO STUDIES ON THE FREELY JOINTED POLYMER-CHAIN WITH EXCLUDED VOLUME INTERACTION

We have carried out computer simulations of the freely jointed polymer chain with an excluded volume interaction using a dynamic Monte Carlo method for chain lengths N between N = 8 and N = 100. The equilibrium values of end-to-end distances and radius of gyration approach the asymptotic form ∼N ν for N ≳ 70 (scaling limit) and excluded volume parameter d/l = 1.0. The scaling limit decreases to lower N for lower d/l . Here l is the length of a chain unit and d is the excluded volume distance. The exponent is ν≈0.6 for d/l≠0 and ν = 0.5 for d/l = 0. The structure function varies as S(k)∼q1/ν (q = kNν) over a wide range of q. This asymptotic behavior for large N is found for N ≳ 16 and d/l≠0. Our results are carefully compared to previous studies on the same model where other types of Monte Carlo methods are used. © 1979 American Institute of Physics.