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Title: Polymers in a Vacuum

Journal Article · · Physical Review Letters
 [1]
  1. Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Cruz, California 95064 (United States)

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.

OSTI ID:
21024549
Journal Information:
Physical Review Letters, Vol. 99, Issue 23; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.238301; (c) 2007 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0031-9007
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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