Parallel algorithm for calculation of the exact partition function of a lattice polymer Original Research Article

We develop a parallel algorithm that calculates the exact partition function of a lattice polymer, by enumerating the number of conformations for each energy level. An efficient parallelization of the calculation is achieved by classifying the conformations according to the shape of the box spanned by a conformation, and enumerating only those in a given box at a time. The calculation time for each box is reduced by preventing the conformations related by symmetries from being generated more than once. The algorithm is applied to study the collapse transition of a lattice homopolymer on a square lattice, by calculating the specific heat for chain lengths up to 36.