Self-Avoiding Walk and Branched Polymers

I will introduce two basic problems in random geometry. A self-avoiding walk is a sequence of steps in a d-dimensional lattice with no self-intersections. If branching is allowed, it is called a branched polymer. Using supersymmetry, one can map these problems to more tractable ones in statistical mechanics. In many cases this allows for the determination of exponents governing the relationship between the diameter and the number of steps.