FLEXIBLE CONDUCTING POLYMERS - AN ANALYTIC APPROACH

By using field theoretic, functional integral techniques, we can treat analytically, to very late stages of the calculations, the thermodyna mic properties of standard models of conducting polymers in solution. Both the primary interest and calculational difficulty of these system s arise from the coupling between fermionic and conformational degrees of freedom. In the functional integral for the partition function we integrate out exactly the fermionic degrees of freedom and treat the r emaining configurational integrals within a loop expansion around the saddle point. We show excellent agreement with Monte Carlo calculation s available for some specific models and relatively short chains, and we demonstrate how easily these methods can be used also for long chai ns and at low temperatures, for which numerical calculations are impra ctical. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-9606(98)51120-8 ].