Random Walk Model on a Hyper-Spherical Lattice

Abstract

We use a one-dimensional random walk on $D$-dimensional hyper-spheres to determine the critical behavior of statistical systems in hyper-spherical geometries. First, we demonstrate the properties of such walk by studying the phase diagram of a percolation problem. We find a line of second and first order phase transitions separated by a tricritical point. Then, we analyze the adsorption-desorption transition for a polymer growing near the attractive boundary of a cylindrical cell membrane. We find that the fraction of adsorbed monomers on the boundary vanishes exponentially when the adsorption energy decreases towards its critical value. We observe a crossover phenomenon to an area of linear growth at energies of the order of the inverse cell radius.

Comments: to appear in NPB Proc. Suppl. of LATTICE'94, 3 pages, ps-file uuencoded, 2 figures included, NO-NUM-0