# Polymer Theory 2, Collapse, Random Energy Model

1. Interacting polymers:
   - Entropy; excluded volume; and solvent-mediated interactions
   - Mean-field estimate of the partition function
2. Swollen (coil) phase in good solvents
   - Flory exponent
   - Scaling behavior in other dimensions
3. Compact (globular) phase in poor solvents
   - Polymer collapse, theta-point
   - Thermodynamic behavior at the transition; reduction in entropy
4. Frozen (folded) state of heteropolymers
   - The Random Energy Model (REM)
   - The freezing transition and associated singularities
   - Designed REM as a model of protein folding

(Detailed Lecture Notes (PDF))