this articles is comprised of two parts: a) an experimental investigation on the behavior of an acrylic gel under dc electric field and b) a physico - mathematical description.a) gel rods made of poly [acrylamide-co-bisacrylamide] were partially hydrolyzed to different extents at ph 12 by teteramethylethylene diamine. equlibrium properties of the resulting gels rods (water content, number of ca...

We review various simple analytical theories for homopolymers within a unified framework. The common guideline of our approach is the Flory theory, and its various avatars, with the attempt at being reasonably self-contained. We expect this review to be useful as an introduction to the topic at the graduate student level.

We study the scaling limit of a fully packed loop model in two dimensions, where the loops are endowed with a bending rigidity. The scaling limit is described by a three-parameter family of conformal field theories, which we characterize via its Coulomb-gas representation. One choice for two of the three parameters reproduces the critical line of the exactly solvable six-vertex model, while ano...

We examine the bending of an Alexander–de Gennes polymer brush over a wide range of curvature from weak to strong. Two different models are used, a blob model and a simpler Flory mean field model. In both cases the height change upon bending is anomalous. In the case of a blob model the height increases for weak bending. In the Flory model there is no height change to first order in the curvatu...

This chapter summarizes the thermodynamics of multicomponent polymer systems, with special emphasis on polymer blends and mixtures. After a brief introduction of the relevant thermodynamic principles – laws of thermodynamics, definitions, and interrelations of thermodynamic variables and potentials – selected theories of liquid and polymer mixtures are provided: Specifically, both lattice theor...

2014 We develop a Flory theory for the problem of conductivity in a d-dimensional random resistor network. We find that the conductivity exponent t is related to the fractal dimensionality df according to the Alexander-Orbach conjecture t = d 2 + df/2, where consistently with Flory theory df = (d + 2)/2 for percolation and df = 2(d + 2)/5 for lattice animals. The results are in excellent agreem...

The Flory theory for a single polymer chain is derived as the lowest order of a cumulant expansion. In this approach, the full original Flory free energy (including the logarithmic term), is recovered. The prefactors of the elastic and repulsive energy are calculated from the microscopic parameters. The method can be applied to other types of monomer-monomer interactions, and the case of a sing...