Simulating a Simple Branched Polymer Using Monte Carlo Methods
Summary
In this report we present a model for a simple branched polymer as a collection of stiff rods
and nodes. We study the effect of the inverse temperature β, elasticity κ, chemical potential
μ and polymer length L on the radius of gyration, by building a Monte Carlo simulation that
allows for a variation in the polymer’s length and number of nodes. We use the finite size
scaling method to achieve a series of data collapses that lead to an expression for the radius
of gyration as a function of βκ and βμ. We further find that Rg ∼ N^0.35 .