Freezing transition of random heteropolymers consisting of an arbitrary set of monomers

Abstract

Mean field replica theory is employed to analyze the freezing transition of random heteropolymers comprised of an arbitrary number (q) of types of monomers. Our formalism assumes that interactions are short range and heterogeneity comes only from pairwise interactions, which are defined by an arbitrary q×q matrix. We show that, in general, there exists a freezing transition from a random globule, in which the thermodynamic equilibrium is comprised of an essentially infinite number polymer conformations, to a frozen globule, in which equilibrium ensemble is dominated by one or very few conformations. We also examine some special cases of interaction matrices to analyze the relationship between the freezing transition and the nature of the interactions involved.