Collapse dynamics of a polymer chain: Theory and simulation
- 1 August 2002
- journal article
- Published by IOP Publishing in Europhysics Letters
- Vol. 59 (3), 391-397
- https://doi.org/10.1209/epl/i2002-00207-5
Abstract
We present a scaling theory describing the collapse of a homopolymer chain in poor solvent. At time t after the beginning of the collapse, the original Gaussian chain of length N is streamlined to form N/g segments of length R(t), each containing g ~ t monomers. These segments are statistical quantities representing cylinders of length R ~ t^{1/2} and diameter d ~ t^{1/4}, but structured out of stretched arrays of spherical globules. This prescription incorporates the capillary instability. We compare the time-dependent structure factor derived for our theory with that obtained from ultra-large-scale molecular dynamics simulation with explicit solvent. This is the first time such a detailed comparison of theoretical and simulation predictions of collapsing chain structure has been attempted. The favorable agreement between the theoretical and computed structure factors supports the picture of the coarse-graining process during polymer collapse.Keywords
Other Versions
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