Microcanonical Analysis of Aggregation Transitions in Flexible Polymer Systems

By means of extensive replica-exchange Monte Carlo simulations of a generic coarse-grained model, we examine systems consisting of up to 11 individual polymer chains with 5 monomers each. The application of microcanonical analysis methods reveals new details about the anatomy of aggregation transitions that were previously inaccessible via conventional canonical analysis. We find evidence for phase separation in the transition region and classify the transition as first order. Finally we show that the aggregation transition consists of a hierarchy of sub-phase transitions and discuss the implications of this finding.