Electrostatics of random walks: A numerical study

Electrostatic properties of polymers have been studied by numerical measurement of the capacitance, polarizability of unrestricted, and self-avoiding random walks of length L=2,4,8,...,128. Asymptotic values of the depolarization coefficients have been found. The electrostatic shapes of random walks have been shown to be significantly more aspherical than could be predicted from the components of the squared radius of gyration. Proportionality coefficients of various scaling properties have been established, and a very strong correlation between the shape tensor and the polarizability tensor has been found.