Monte carlo simulation of many-arm star polymers

The statistics of many-arm star polymers in dilute solution is studied by means of the enrichment algorithm [K. Ohno and K. Binder, J. Stat. Phys. 64 , 781 (1991)] using a Monte Carlo simulation technique. In this study, typically 50,000 samples of star polymers with 12–32 arms each of which has 50 bonds are generated. The results for the configuration-number exponent γ(f) are γ(12) = -3.4 ± 0.3, γ(18) = -8.9 ± 0.2 and γ(32) = -29 ± 2.