An analytical approach for the study of monodisperse polymer mediated interaction

Polymer mediated interactions between surfaces have been studied extensively, as these kinds of interactions commonly arise in polymer science, biophysics and study of colloids. While there have been many numerical studies in this subject, analytical results have been considerably more sparse. In this paper, an analytical approach for the study of monodisperse polymer mediated interaction between two planar surfaces has been presented. Two models for the polymer are considered. In the first one, it is assumed that only loops and bridges could be formed, while in the second one this restriction is suppressed and as a result the formation of tails and free chains are also allowed. The two models showed the same behavior at small distances between the plates. However, the results showed qualitatively different behaviors at large distances in the two models. While in the first model, two plates attract each other at large distances, in the second one the force is always repulsive.