%0 Journal Article %T Organization of strongly interacting directed polymer liquids in the presence of stringent constraints %A Anton Souslov %A D. Zeb Rocklin %A Paul M. Goldbart %J Physics %D 2013 %I arXiv %R 10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.096401 %X The impact of impenetrable obstacles on the energetics and equilibrium structure of strongly repulsive directed polymers is investigated. As a result of the strong interactions, regions of severe polymer depletion and excess are found in the vicinity of the obstacle, and the associated free-energy cost is found to scale quadratically with the average polymer density. The polymer-polymer interactions are accounted for via a sequence of transformations: from the 3D line liquid to a 2D fluid of Bose particles to a 2D composite fermion fluid and, finally, to a 2D one-component plasma. The results presented here are applicable to a range of systems consisting of noncrossing directed lines. %U http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.5267v2