title: Evidence of aging and dynamic scaling in the collapse of a polymer.
abstract: We investigate a newly framed two-time property for the nonequilibrium evolution dynamics during the collapse of a homopolymer via Monte Carlo simulations of a model polymer. Our results show evidence of aging effects, as observed in the slow dynamics of structural and spin glasses, along with the presence of a dynamic scaling of the autocorrelation function ∼x(-λ(c)) (x being the ratio of the cluster sizes at two different times). We estimate the value of λ(c) unambiguously by applying a finite-size scaling analysis to the numerical data. The value thus obtained obeys a bound which we predict via general theoretical arguments. The results presented should be of general validity and may trigger direct experimental verification in single-polymer dynamics.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Leipzig, Postfach 100 920, D-04009 Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Suman
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Majumder
authors.affiliation: Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Leipzig, Postfach 100 920, D-04009 Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Wolfhard
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Janke