Aging and Failure of a Polymer Chain under Tension

The rupture of a polymer chain maintained at temperature T under fixed tension is prototypical to a wide array of systems failing under constant external stress and random perturbations. Past research focused on analytic and numerical studies of the mean rate of collapse of such a chain. Surprisingl...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPhysical review letters Vol. 126; no. 8; p. 085501
Main Authors Charan, Harish, Hansen, Alex, Hentschel, H G E, Procaccia, Itamar
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 26.02.2021
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Summary:The rupture of a polymer chain maintained at temperature T under fixed tension is prototypical to a wide array of systems failing under constant external stress and random perturbations. Past research focused on analytic and numerical studies of the mean rate of collapse of such a chain. Surprisingly, an analytic calculation of the probability distribution function (PDF) of collapse rates appears to be lacking. Since rare events of rapid collapse can be important and even catastrophic, we present here a theory of this distribution, with a stress on its tail of fast rates. We show that the tail of the PDF is a power law with a universal exponent that is theoretically determined. Extensive numerics validate the offered theory. Lessons pertaining to other problems of the same type are drawn.
ISSN:1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.085501