Neal Madras - Self-avoiding walks with drift

The self-avoiding walk has long been used as a lattice model of a long polymer molecule in a good solvent. We present a model of a self-avoiding walk in which steps in different directions have different probabilities. This can model a type of polymer that is oriented by an external magnetic field. It can also be used in a model of flux lines in superconductors. This talk will introduce some of the physics background and describe some physically relevant mathematical results.

This is joint work with Christian Borgs, Jennifer Chayes, and Christopher King.