Interchain monomer contact probability in two-dimensional polymer solutions

TL;DR

This study uses molecular dynamics simulations to explore how two-dimensional polymer chains behave at different densities, revealing that long chains form compact, fractal-like structures regardless of density.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the density crossover scaling and fractal packing of two-dimensional polymer chains using simulation data.

Findings

Long chains form fractal packings with perimeter dimension 5/4.

Chain structure remains compact across densities.

Contact probability scales with subchain size.

Abstract

Using molecular dynamics simulation of a standard bead-spring model we investigate the density crossover scaling of strictly two-dimensional self-avoiding polymer chains focusing on properties related to the contact exponent set by the intrachain subchain size distribution. Irrespective of the density sufficiently long chains are found to consist of compact packings of blobs of fractal perimeter dimension dp = 5/4.