Individual entanglements in a simulated polymer melt,
E. Ben-Naim, G.S. Grest, T.A. Witten, A.R.C. Bajlon
We examine entanglements using monomer contacts between pairs of
chains in a Brownian-dynamics simulation of a polymer melt. A map of
contact positions with respect to the contacting monomer numbers
(i, j) shows clustering in small regions of (i, j)
which persists in time, as expected for entanglements. Using the
``space''-time correlation function of the aforementioned contacts, we
show that a pair of entangled chains exhibits a qualitatively
different behavior than a pair of distant chains when brought
together. Quantitatively, about 50% of the contacts between entangled
chains are persistent contacts not present in independently moving
chains. In addition, we account for several observed scaling
properties of the contact correlation function
Space time representation of the contact map
of two entangled chains (left) and two unentangled chains (right)
during the simulation. The horizontal axis
represents monomer index i. Monomer index j is
color-coded: foreground is blue, background is red. The vertical axis
is time.
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