STATISTICS OF POLYMERS IN RANDOM-MEDIA

The theory is developed of localized states of linear and branched polymer macromolecules in a medium with quenched disorder. The condition under which short chains are localized in a single potential well are found and the distribution of such well over their sizes is obtained. It is shown that spreading over several wells is energetically favorable for long chains. The free energy and sizes of macromolecules in a random medium are calculated with the two-particle interaction between their links and in the case of the three-particle and long-range interactions. The reasons for discerning these results from those obtained before in the framework of the variational approach are discussed. The characteristics of polymer network disorder are calculated and the dependence of anisotropic deformation of macromolecules placed in networks upon the degree of their stretching is studied. Also the correlation functions of such macromolecules of polymer solvent are calculated and the results obtained are shown to be in agreement with the experiment data.