https://doi.org/10.1007/s100510050115
A Monte-Carlo study of meanders
CEA Saclay, Service de Physique Théorique, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France
Received:
21
June
1999
Published online: 15 March 2000
We study the statistics of meanders, i.e. configurations of a road
crossing a river through n bridges, and possibly winding around the
source, as a toy model for compact folding of polymers. We introduce a
Monte-Carlo method which allows us to simulate large meanders up to
n=400. By performing large n extrapolations, we give asymptotic
estimates of the connectivity per bridge R=3.5018(3), the
configuration exponent 
, the winding exponent 
and other quantities describing the shape of meanders.
PACS: 64.60.-i – General studies of phase transitions / 05.10.Ln – Monte Carlo methods / 02.10.Eb – Combinatorics
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 2000
