Randomly branching θ-polymers in two and three dimensions: Average properties and distribution functions

Abstract

Motivated by renewed interest in the physics of branched polymers, we present here a detailed characterization of the connectivity and spatial properties of 2- and 3-dimensional single-chain conformations of randomly branching polymers under θ-solvent conditions obtained by Monte Carlo computer simulations. The first part of the work focuses on polymer average properties, such as the average polymer spatial size as a function of the total tree mass and the typical length of the average path length on the polymer backbone. In the second part, we move beyond average chain behavior and we discuss the complete distribution functions for tree paths and tree spatial distances, which are shown to obey the classical Redner–des Cloizeaux functional form. Our results were rationalized first by the systematic comparison to a Flory theory for branching polymers and next by generalized Fisher–Pincus relationships between scaling exponents of distribution functions. For completeness, the properties of θ-polymers were compared to their ideal (i.e., no volume interactions) as well as good-solvent (i.e., above the θ-point) counterparts. The results presented here complement the recent work performed in our group [A. Rosa and R. Everaers, J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 49, 345001 (2016); J. Chem. Phys. 145, 164906 (2016); and Phys. Rev. E 95, 012117 (2017)] in the context of the scaling properties of branching polymers.