New Renormalization Group Results for Scaling of Self-Avoiding Tethered Membranes

The scaling properties of self-avoiding polymerized 2-dimensional membranes are studied via renormalization group methods based on a multilocal operator product expansion. The renormalization group functions are calculated to second order. This yields the scaling exponent ν to order ε2. Our extrapolations for ν agree with the Gaussian variational estimate for large space dimension d and are close to the Flory estimate for d = 3. The interplay between self-avoidance and rigidity at small d is briefly discussed. Submitted for publication in Nuclear Physics B Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Physique Théorique CNRS