Solvable toy model of negative energetic elasticity

Abstract: Recent experiments have established negative energetic elasticity, the negative contribution of energy to the elastic modulus, as a universal property of polymer gels. To reveal the microscopic origin of this phenomenon, Shirai and Sakumichi investigated a polymer model on a cubic lattice with the energy effect from the solvent in finite-size calculations [Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 148101 (2023)]. Motivated by this work, we provide a simple platform to study the elasticity of polymer chains by considering a one-dimensional random walk with the energy effect. This model can be mapped onto the classical Ising chain, leading to an exact form of the free energy in the thermodynamic or continuous limit. Our analytical results are qualitatively consistent with Shirai and Sakumichi's work. Our model serves as a fundamental benchmark for studying negative energetic elasticity.