The Nonergodic (“Spin-Glass–Like”) Phase of Heteropolymer with Quenched Disordered Sequence of Links

Configurational statistics of heteropolymer with quenched disordered sequence of links is investigated with the aid of replica approach. It is shown that frozen states with broken ergodicity exist in this system. The features of nonergodic state as well as the freezing transition depend drastically on the dimensionality of space d. For d > 2 the model is analogous to Potts glass and there exists the first-order phase transition with discontinuous behaviour of the order parameter–replica overlaps–but without specific heat. The set of states in the frozen phase is not ultrametric and the number of states decreases when the heterogeneity of the chain increases. For d < 2 the transition is of the second order, the set of states is ultrametric and the number of states does not depend on heterogeneity of the polymer.