Cd. Sfatos et al., FLUCTUATION EFFECTS ON MICROPHASE SEPARATION IN RANDOM COPOLYMERS, Nuovo cimento della Societa italiana di fisica. D, Condensed matter,atomic, molecular and chemical physics, biophysics, 16(7), 1994, pp. 879-882
We study random copolymers consisting of two kinds of monomers with at
traction between similar kinds. The mean-field analysis of this system
indicates a continuous phase transition into a phase with periodic mi
crodomain structure. It is shown,that the inverse of the renormalized
propagator has a. minimum at non-zero wave numbers. consequently, ther
e is an anomalously large contribution of fluctuations that make the d
isordered phase locally stable. However, below a certain temperature,
the ordered phase is shown to be locally stable and a weak first-order
transition is possible, with qualitative differences from the weak cr
ystallization theory developed by Brazovskii. These differences are du
e to the peculiar form of the fourth-order vertex of the effective Ham
iltonian for the system. We calculated the temperature region for the
validity of the mean-field estimates of the amplitude and the scale of
microphase separation.