title: Organization of strongly interacting directed polymer liquids in the presence of stringent constraints.
abstract: The impact of impenetrable obstacles on the energetics and equilibrium structure of strongly repulsive directed polymers is investigated. As a result of the strong interactions, regions of severe polymer depletion and excess are found in the vicinity of the obstacle, and the associated free-energy cost is found to scale quadratically with the average polymer density. The polymer-polymer interactions are accounted for via a sequence of transformations: from the 3D line liquid to a 2D fluid of Bose particles to a 2D composite fermion fluid and, finally, to a 2D one-component plasma. The results presented here are applicable to a range of systems consisting of noncrossing directed lines.
authors.affiliation: School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA.
authors.forename: Anton
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Souslov
authors.forename: D Zeb
authors.initials: DZ
authors.lastname: Rocklin
authors.forename: Paul M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Goldbart