Polymers in a vacuum.
In a variety of situations, isolated polymer molecules are found in a vacuum, and here we examine their properties. Angular momentum conservation is shown to significantly alter the average size of a chain and its conservation is only broken slowly by thermal radiation. For an ideal chain, the time autocorrelation for monomer position oscillates with a period proportional to chain length. The oscillations and damping are analyzed in detail. Short-range repulsive interactions suppress oscillations and speed up relaxation, but stretched chains still show damped oscillatory correlations.
Deutsch
J M
JM
Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Cruz, California 95064, USA.
D003198:Computer Simulation; D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry; D008956:Models, Chemical; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry*; D014618:Vacuum
D011108:Polymers; D004247:DNA