Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search

Mathematics Combinatorics

The Statistical Mechanics of Interacting Walks, Polygons, Animals and Vesicles

by (author) E.J. Janse Van Rensburg

Publisher
Oxford University Press
Initial publish date
Mar 2000
Category
Combinatorics
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780198505617
    Publish Date
    Mar 2000
    List Price
    $231.00

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Out of print

This edition is not currently available in bookstores. Check your local library or search for used copies at Abebooks.

Description

This book surveys and explains the mathematical methods and techniques used in the study of lattice models of polymers in solvents. The techniques include the self-avoiding walk and its related models including animal and tree graphs, surfaces and vesicles. The important feature in all these models in the contribution of conformational degrees of freedom to the free energy, and this leads on to the idea of a tricritical point. The book explores the theory of tricriticality showing how it can be used to interpret the limiting free energy and generating functions. Density function and pattern theorems are also discusssed and finally these ideas are applied to models of collapsing and adsorbing walks, to composite polygons and crumpling surfaces.

About the author

Contributor Notes

E J Janse van Rensburg Department of Mathematics and Statistics York University, Toronto Ontario, CANADA M3J 1P3 Tel. 736-2100 (X33837) Fax. 736-5516 Email: rensburg@mathstat.yorku.ca Nationality: South African Date of birth: 29 November 1959