New Universality Class for Kinetic Gelation

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Abstract
Percolation is often used as a model for critical behavior of the sol-gel transition. A three-dimensional kinetic model for gelation, similar to that of Manneville and de Seze, is investigated with a Monte Carlo method. By looking at the ratios of the critical amplitudes of the "susceptibility" (weight-average degree of polymerization) below and above the percolation threshold, clear evidence is found that this model is neither in the universality class of standard percolation nor in that of classical (Flory-Stockmayer) theory.