Effective interaction between star polymers

TL;DR

This study uses Molecular Dynamics simulations to analyze the effective interactions between star polymers, confirming a proposed potential model with excellent agreement across various arm numbers.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed simulation-based validation of the star polymer interaction potential across different arm configurations.

Findings

The pair potential accurately describes interactions for a broad range of arm numbers.

Simulations confirm the crossover from exponential decay to logarithmic repulsion.

Results support the theoretical model proposed by Likos et al.

Abstract

The distance-resolved effective interaction between two star polymers in a good solvent is calculated by Molecular Dynamics computer simulations. The results are compared with a pair potential proposed recently by Likos et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 1998, 80, 4450] which is exponentially decaying for large distances and crosses over, at the corona diameter of the star, to an ultrasoft logarithmic repulsion for small distances. Excellent agreement is found in a broad range of star arm numbers.