title: Thermal fluctuations and rubber elasticity.
abstract: The effects of thermal elastic fluctuations in rubbery materials are examined. It is shown that, due to their interplay with the incompressibility constraint, these fluctuations qualitatively modify the large-deformation stress-strain relation, compared to that of classical rubber elasticity. To leading order, this mechanism provides a simple and generic explanation for the peak structure of Mooney-Rivlin stress-strain relation and shows good agreement with experiments. It also leads to the prediction of a phonon correlation function that depends on the external deformation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York 13244, USA. xxing@physics.syr.edu
authors.forename: Xiangjun
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Xing
authors.forename: Paul M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Goldbart
authors.forename: Leo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Radzihovsky