MEMBRANES WITH ANCHORED POLYMERS AT THE ADSORPTION TRANSITION

Polymers which are anchored to membranes exert bending moments onto th ese membranes. It is shown by general scaling arguments and explicit c alculations for ideal chains i) that the polymer-induced ''spontaneous '' curvature M(sp) has the scaling form Omega(sp) (epsilon N-phi)/N-nu , where N and epsilon are the chain length and the distance from the a dsorption-desorption transition, respectively, and ii) that M(sp) chan ges its sign close to this transition. Thus, if the polymer and the me mbrane experience effectively attractive and repulsive interactions, t he membrane is bent towards and away from the polymer, respectively.