2001/03/01 by Shirish M. Chitanvis, Chitanvis, Shirish M.
Computer Science · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Earth Systems and Cosmic Evolution #Nonlinear Dynamics and Pattern Formation #cond-mat.soft #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/0103039
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arxiv created 2001/03/01 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30
We have mapped the physics of a system of semi-flexible inextensible polymers onto a complex Ginzburg-Landau field theory using techniques of functional integration. It is shown in the limit of low number density of monomers in a melt of semi-flexible, inextensible polymers, kept apart by an excluded volume interaction, the radius of gyration scales as Nnu, where N is the chain length, and nu = 1, in contrast to the value of nu ~ 0.6 for flexible polymer melts. Using Renormalization Group arguments, we show that the system exhibits an infra-red stable fixed point which can be identified as the transition to the entangled state. Experiments to test these calculations are suggested.