Individual Entanglements in a Simulated Polymer Melt
Abstract
We examine entanglements using monomer contacts between pairs of chains in a Brownian-dynamics simulation of a polymer melt. A map of contact positions with respect to the contacting monomer numbers (i,j) shows clustering in small regions of (i,j) which persists in time, as expected for entanglements. Using the ``space''-time correlation function of the aforementioned contacts, we show that a pair of entangled chains exhibits a qualitatively different behavior than a pair of distant chains when brought together. Quantitatively, about 50% of the contacts between entangled chains are persistent contacts not present in independently moving chains. In addition, we account for several observed scaling properties of the contact correlation function.
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/9509070,
title = {Individual Entanglements in a Simulated Polymer Melt},
author = {E. Ben-Naim and G. S. Grest and T. A. Witten and A. R. C. Baljon},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/9509070},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
latex, 12 pages, 7 figures, postscript file available at http://arnold.uchicago.edu/~ebn/