Melt of polymer rings: The decorated loop model

作者：Obukhov S^*; Johner A; Baschnagel J; Meyer H; Wittmer J P

来源：EPL, 2014, 105(4): 48005.

DOI：10.1209/0295-5075/105/48005

Melts of unconcatenated and unknotted polymer rings are a paradigm for soft matter ruled by topological interactions. We propose a description of a system of rings of length N as a collection of smaller polydisperse Gaussian loops, ranging from the entanglement length to the skeleton ring length similar to N-2/3, assembled in random trees. Individual rings in the melt are predicted to be marginally compact with a mean square radius of gyration R-g(2) similar to N-2/3 (1-const center dot N-1/3). As a rule, simple power laws for asymptotically long rings come with sluggish crossovers. Experiments and computer simulations merely deal with crossover regimes typically extending to N similar to 10(3-4). The estimated crossover functions allow for a satisfactory fit of simulation data.

• 出版日期2014-2