Universal scaling, entanglements, and knots of model chain molecules.

By identifying the maximally random jammed state of freely jointed chains of tangent hard spheres we are able to determine the distinct scaling regimes characterizing the dependence of chain dimensions and topology on volume fraction. Calculated distributions of (i) the contour length of the primitive paths and (ii) the number of entanglements per chain agree remarkably well with recent theoretical predictions in all scaling regimes. Furthermore, our simulations reveal a hitherto unsuspected connection between purely intramolecular (knots) and intermolecular (entanglements) topological constraints.

• Publication year

  2008

• Venue

  Physical Review Letters

• Publication date

  2008-12-31

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Physics

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.101.265702PMID 19437651
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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