Mézard, Marc; Parisi, Giorgio A variational approach to directed polymers. (English) Zbl 0764.60115 J. Phys. A, Math. Gen. 25, No. 17, 4521-4534 (1992). Summary: We develop a variational approach for directed polymers in random media in the framework of the replica formalism. We derive the functional expression for the free energy in terms of the probability distribution of the probability of finding a polymer at a given point. We compare these results with those coming from the broken replica symmetry approach and we present some new computations in this framework. Cited in 4 Documents MSC: 60K40 Other physical applications of random processes 82D60 Statistical mechanics of polymers Keywords:statistical mechanics; polymers in random media; broken replica symmetry approach PDFBibTeX XMLCite \textit{M. Mézard} and \textit{G. Parisi}, J. Phys. A, Math. Gen. 25, No. 17, 4521--4534 (1992; Zbl 0764.60115) Full Text: DOI Link