The phase diagram of the Flory-Huggins-de Gennes model of a binary polymer blend

We undertake a numerical study of the Flory-Huggins-de Gennes functional ind=3 dimensions describing a polymer blend. By discretising the functional on a three-dimensional lattice and employing the hybrid Monte Carlo simulation algorithm, we investigate to what extent the inclusion of the term describing fluctuations in local polymer concentration alters the phase diagram of the model. We find that, despite the relatively small weight of the fluctuation term, the coexistence curve is shifted by an appreciable amount from that predicted by naive mean-field theory, which ignores such spatial fluctuations. The direction of the shift is consistent with that already observed in experiment and in simulations of microscopic models of polymer blends. A finite-size scaling analysis indicates that the critical behavior of the model seems to belong to the 3D Ising universality class rather than being mean-field in nature.It is a pleasure to dedicate this paper to Oliver Penrose on the occasion of his 65th birthday.