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My PhD thesis focused on the study of polymeric chains with random self-interactions. In collaboration with E. Marinari and G. Parisi, we investigated using Monte Carlo simulations the thermodynamic behavior of a linear heteropolymer in which the interactions between different monomers contain a quenched random component. We showed the existence, along with the usual coil and globule phases, of a new folded phase, characterised by long relaxation times and by the existence of few stable states. We studied the dynamics of the heteropolymeric chain relaxing toward a new equilibrium configuration after the action of an external perturbation. We compared the results of Monte Carlo simulations with the results of a Langevin normal mode decomposition and discussed the case of an ordered homopolymeric chain.

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