# Simulation of Entangled Polymer Solutions

## TL;DR

This paper introduces a fast, pseudo-continuous simulation method for entangled polymer solutions that accurately captures structural and mechanical properties at equilibrium, improving computational efficiency over traditional models.

## Contribution

A novel pseudo-continuous backbone model that prevents chain crossings and enables efficient simulation of entangled polymers at equilibrium.

## Key findings

- Structural correlations match theoretical predictions.
- Mechanical correlations agree with expected semi-dilute solution behavior.
- Simulation runs efficiently on standard desktop computers.

## Abstract

We present a computer simulation of entangled polymer solutions at equilibrium. The chains repel each other via a soft Gaussian potential, appropriate for semi-dilute solutions at the scale of a correlation blob. The key innovation to suppress chain crossings is to use a pseudo-continuous model of a backbone which effectively leaves no gaps between consecutive points on the chain, unlike the usual bead-and-spring model. Our algorithm is sufficiently fast to observe the entangled regime using a standard desktop computer. The simulated structural and mechanical correlations are in fair agreement with the expected predictions for a semi-dilute solution of entangled chains.