Internal dissipation of a polymer

Ideal linear-chain polymers with fixed angular momentum

The statistical mechanics of a linear noninteracting polymer chain with a large number of monomers is considered with fixed angular momentum. The radius of gyration for a linear polymer is derived exactly by functional integration. This result is then compared to simulations done with a large number of noninteracting rigid links at fixed angular momentum. The simulation agrees with the theory up to finite-size corrections. The simulations are also used to investigate the anisotropic nature of a spinning polymer. We find universal scaling of the polymer size along the direction of the angular momentum, as a function of rescaled angular momentum.

Collision of polymers in a vacuum

In a number of experimental situations, single-polymer molecules can be suspended in a vacuum. Here collisions between such molecules are considered. The limit of high collision velocity is investigated numerically for a variety of conditions. The distribution of contact times, scattering angles, and final velocities are analyzed. In this limit, self-avoiding chains are found to become highly stretched as they collide with each other and have a distribution of scattering times that depends on the scattering angle. The velocity of the molecules after the collisions is similar to predictions of a model assuming thermal equilibration of molecules during the collision. The most important difference is a significant subset of molecules that inelastically scatter but do not substantially change direction.