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Fingerprinting Brownian Motions of Polymers under Flow

by Zhiqiang Shen, Jan Michael Y Carrillo, Bobby G Sumpter, Yangyang Wang
Publication Type
Journal
Journal Name
Physical Review Letters
Publication Date
Page Number
057801
Volume
129
Issue
5

We present a quantitative approach to the self-dynamics of polymers under steady flow by employing a set of complementary reference frames and extending the spherical harmonic expansion technique to dynamic density correlations. Application of this method to nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations of polymer melts reveals a number of universal features. For both unentangled and entangled melts, the center-of-mass motions in the flow frame are described by superdiffusive, anisotropic Gaussian distributions, whereas the isotropic component of monomer self-dynamics in the center-of-mass frame is strongly suppressed. Spatial correlation analysis shows that the heterogeneity of monomer self-dynamics increases significantly under flow.