Are polymer melts "ideal"?

It is commonly accepted that in concentrated solutions or melts high-molecular weight polymers display random-walk conformational properties without long-range correlations between subsequent bonds. This absence of memory means, for instance, that the bond-bond correlation function, \(P(s)\), of two...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inarXiv.org
Main Authors Wittmer, J P, Beckrich, P, Crevel, F, Huang, C C, Cavallo, A, Kreer, T, Meyer, H
Format Paper
LanguageEnglish
Published Ithaca Cornell University Library, arXiv.org 13.10.2006
Subjects
Correlation
Decay
Incompressibility
Melts
Polymer melts
Polymers
Self-assembly
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Summary:It is commonly accepted that in concentrated solutions or melts high-molecular weight polymers display random-walk conformational properties without long-range correlations between subsequent bonds. This absence of memory means, for instance, that the bond-bond correlation function, \(P(s)\), of two bonds separated by \(s\) monomers along the chain should exponentially decay with \(s\). Presenting numerical results and theoretical arguments for both monodisperse chains and self-assembled (essentially Flory size-distributed) equilibrium polymers we demonstrate that some long-range correlations remain due to self-interactions of the chains caused by the chain connectivity and the incompressibility of the melt. Suggesting a profound analogy with the well-known long-range velocity correlations in liquids we find, for instance, \(P(s)\) to decay algebraically as \(s^{-3/2}\). Our study suggests a precise method for obtaining the statistical segment length \bstar in a computer experiment.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.0610359