Fluctuations of the winding number of a directed polymer in a random medium

A variational method that allows for replica-symmetry breaking is applied to directed polymers in an (N+1)-dimensional disordered medium. The noise studied here has gaussian correlations, i.e. it is short-ranged. In dimensions N<2, the variational scheme yields only a strong-coupling phase and anomalous diffusion; while in dimensions N>2 it shows weak- and strong-coupling phases but no anomalous diffusion. Comparisons are made with the results of Mezard and Parisi [11] for no...

In this paper, we consider directed polymers in random environment with discrete space and time. For transverse dimension at least equal to 3, we prove that diffusivity holds for the path in the full weak disorder region, i.e., where the partition function differs from its annealed value only by a non-vanishing factor. Deep inside this region, we also show that the quenched averaged energy has fluctuations of order 1. In complete generality (arbitrary dimension and temperatur...

In this mostly numerical study, we revisit the statistical properties of the ground state of a directed polymer in a $d=1+1$ "hilly" disorder landscape, i.e. when the quenched disorder has power-law tails. When disorder is Gaussian, the polymer minimizes its total energy through a collective optimization, where the energy of each visited site only weakly contributes to the total. Conversely, a hilly landscape forces the polymer to distort and explore a larger portion of space...

The overlap of a $d+1$ dimensional directed polymer of length $t$ in a random medium is studied using a Renormalization Group approach. In $d>2$ it vanishes at $T_c$ for $t\rightarrow \infty$ as $t^{\Sigma}$ where $\Sigma=[\frac{d-1}{3-2d}]\frac{d}{z}$ and $z$ is the transverse spatial rescaling exponent. The same formula holds in $d=1$ for any finite temperature and it agrees with previous numerical simulations at $d=1$. Among other results we also determine the scaling expo...

We introduce a new disorder regime for directed polymers in dimension $1+1$ that sits between the weak and strong disorder regimes. We call it the intermediate disorder regime. It is accessed by scaling the inverse temperature parameter $\beta$ to zero as the polymer length $n$ tends to infinity. The natural choice of scaling is $\beta_n:=\beta n^{-1/4}$. We show that the polymer measure under this scaling has previously unseen behavior. While the fluctuation exponents of the...

In this work we study the transport properties of non-interacting overdamped particles, moving on tilted disordered potentials, subjected to Gaussian white noise. We give exact formulas for the drift and diffusion coefficients for the case of random potentials resulting from the interaction of a particle with a "random polymer". In our model the "random polymer" is made up, by means of some stochastic process, of monomers that can be taken from a finite or countable infinite ...

We estimate the mean first time, called the mean rotation time (MRT), for a planar random polymer to wind around a point. This polymer is modeled as a collection of n rods, each of them being parameterized by a Brownian angle. We are led to study the sum of i.i.d. imaginary exponentials with one dimensional Brownian motions as arguments. We find that the free end of the polymer satisfies a novel stochastic equation with a nonlinear time function. Finally, we obtain an asympto...

In this article we discuss a set of geometric ideas which shed some light on the question of directed polymer pinning in the presence of bulk disorder. Differing from standard methods and techniques, we transform the problem to a particular dependent percolative system and relate the pinning transition to a percolation transition.

Recent Monte Carlo simulations of a grafted semiflexible polymer in 1+1 dimensions have revealed a pronounced bimodal structure in the probability distribution of the transverse (bending) fluctuations of the free end, when the total contour length is of the order of the persistence length [G. Lattanzi et al., Phys. Rev E 69, 021801 (2004)]. In this paper, we show that the emergence of bimodality is related to a similar behavior observed when a random walker is driven in the t...

The geometry of a smooth line is characterized locally by its curvature and torsion, or globally by its writhe. In many situations of physical interest the line is, however, not smooth so that the classical Frenet description of the geometry breaks down everywhere. One example is a thermalized stiff polymer such as DNA, where the shape of the molecule is the integral of a Brownian process. In such systems a natural frame is defined by parallel transport. In order to calculate...