We examine the condensed states for a semiflexible polymer in poor solvent as a function of stiffness, focusing on the transition region between globule and torus. Conservative estimates for the upper and lower bounds to the globule–torus transition region are found. These are then used to...

A long flexible neutral polymer chain immersed in a poor solvent and interacting with an impenetrable attractive surface exhibits a phase known as surface attached globule (SAG) in addition to other adsorbed and desorbed phases. In the thermodynamic limit, the SAG phase has the same free energy...

We review critically the concepts and the applications of Cayley Trees and Bethe Lattices in statistical mechanics in a tentative effort to remove widespread misuse of these simple, but yet important–and different–ideal graphs. We illustrate, in particular, two rigorous techniques to deal...

Minority games where groups of agents remember, react or incorporate information with different timescales are investigated. We support our findings by analytical arguments whenever possible.

We analytically address the non-equilibrium problem of a Brownian particle in contact with a thermal reservoir by means of a non-Gaussian Langevin noise term η(t). The presence of noise kurtosis is akin to a second temperature reservoir acting on the system, and we exploit its consequences by...

We study the evaporation of stars from globular clusters using the simplified Chandrasekhar model [S. Chandrasekhar, Dynamical friction. II. The rate of escape of stars from clusters and the evidence for the operation of dynamical friction, Astrophys. J. 97 (1943) 263]. This is an analytically...

Effect of uniaxial single-ion anisotropy upon magnetic properties of a mixed spin-1/2 and spin-S (S⩾1) Ising model on a bathroom tile (4–8) lattice is examined within the framework of an exact star-triangle mapping transformation. Particular attention is focused on the phase diagrams...