Tempering and annealing in a Verdier-Stockmayer polymer

<div>Two Monte Carlo methods, simulated annealing and parallel tempering, were applied to a Verdier-Stockmayer polymer. The efficiency of the two algorithms in exploring the lowest energy state possible for the model polymers was measured by the number of energy degenerate configurations (configurations that have the same energy but are structurally different). Parallel tempering consistently explored more energy degenerate configurations as compared to simulated annealing.</div>