title: Communication: effects of stress on the tube confinement potential and dynamics of topologically entangled rod fluids.
abstract: A microscopic theory for the effect of applied stress on the transverse topological confinement potential and slow dynamics of heavily entangled rigid rods is presented. The confining entanglement force localizing a polymer in a tube is predicted to have a finite strength. As a consequence, three regimes of terminal relaxation behavior are predicted with increasing stress: accelerated reptation due to tube widening (dilation), relaxation via deformation-assisted activated transverse barrier hopping, and complete destruction of the lateral tube constraints corresponding to microscopic yielding or a disentanglement transition.
authors: Department of Physics, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
authors: Daniel M
authors: DM
authors: Sussman
authors: Kenneth S
authors: KS
authors: Schweizer
mesh_terms: D057446:Hydrodynamics; D008956:Models, Chemical; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D011108:Polymers