Analysis of Monte Carlo results on the kinetics of lattice polymer chains with excluded volume

Monte Carlo calculations by Verdier et al. on the kinetics of polymer chains on a lattice have shown a large increase of relaxation times in the presence of excluded volume restrictions, i.e., when two beads of the chain cannot occupy the same lattice site. We show that these long relaxation times must be attributed to the specific choice of the kinetics rather than to the intrinsic nature of the excluded volume interaction. A simplified analytic model which preserves the essential characteristics of the kinetics of Verdier’s model reproduces qualitatively the Monte Carlo results for the realxation of the squares of the Rouse coordinates.