New Results for Directed Vesicles and Chains near an Attractive Wall

Abstract

In this paper we present new exact results for single fully directed walks and fully directed vesicles near an attractive wall. This involves a novel method of solution for these types of problems. The major advantage of this method is that it, unlike many other single-walker methods, generalizes to an arbitrary number of walkers. The method of solution involves solving a set of partial difference equations with a Bethe Ansatz. The solution is expressed as a “constant-term” formula which evaluates to sums of products of binomial coefficients. The vesicle critical temperature is found at which a binding transition takes place, and the asymptotic forms of the associated partition functions are found to have three different entropic exponents depending on whether the temperature is above, below, or at its critical value. The expected number of monomers adsorbed onto the surface is found to become proportional to the vesicle length at temperatures below critical. Scaling functions near the critical point are determined.