On the first-order collapse transition of a three-dimensional, flexible homopolymer chain model

We present simulation results for the phase behavior of flexible lattice polymer chains using the Wang-Landau sampling idea. These chains display a two-stage collapse through a coil-globule transition followed by a crystallization at lower temperatures. Performing a finite-size scaling analysis on the two transitions, we show that they coincide in the thermodynamic limit corresponding to a direct collapse of the random coil into the crystal without intermediate coil-globule transition.