Exact results for the effect of bond flexibility on the structure and the collapse transition of isolated square-well trimers

Abstract

Exact results are obtained for isolated, freely jointed, square-well trimers bonded with an infinitely deep square-well potential. Bond flexibility is found to have small but detectable effects on structural and thermodynamic properties. A larger chain size, a higher heat capacity, and a sharper collapse transition with a lower transition temperature are observed for a flexibly bonded chain, relative to an infinitely stiff trimer.