2004/04/30 by J. P. Wittmer, H. Meyer, J. Baschnagel +7 · 4 citations
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Material Dynamics and Properties #Phase Equilibria and Thermodynamics #Theoretical and Computational Physics #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.93.147801
4 pages, 4 figures
arxiv created 2004/06/21 · openalex publication_date 2004/09/29 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The scaling of the bond-bond correlation function P1(s) along linear polymer chains is investigated with respect to the curvilinear distance s along the flexible chain and the monomer density \ensuremathρ via Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics simulations. Surprisingly, the correlations in dense three-dimensional solutions are found to decay with a power law P1(s)\ensuremath∼s^\ensuremath-\ensuremathω with \ensuremathω=3/2 and the exponential behavior commonly assumed is clearly ruled out for long chains. In semidilute solutions, the density dependent scaling of P1(s)\ensuremath≈g^\ensuremath-\ensuremathω0(s/g)^\ensuremath-\ensuremathω with \ensuremathω0=2\ensuremath-2\ensuremathν=0.824 (\ensuremathν=0.588 being Flory's exponent) is set by the number of monomers g(\ensuremathρ) in an excluded volume blob. Our computational findings compare well with simple scaling arguments and perturbation calculation. The power-law behavior is due to self-interactions of chains caused by the chain connectivity and the incompressibility of the melt.