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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik
DY 29: Soft matter
DY 29.1: Talk
Thursday, March 29, 2007, 14:00–14:15, H3
Polymers and star polymers in correlated environments — Viktoria Blavatska1,2, •Christian von Ferber3,4, and Yurij Holovatch2,5 — 1Institute for Condensed Matter Physics, National Academy of Sciences Ukraine, Lviv — 2Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Leipzig — 3Applied Mathematics Research Centre, Coventry University, UK — 4Theoretische Polymerphysik, Universität Freiburg — 5Institut für Theoretische Physik, Johannes Kepler Universität Linz, Österreich
We show that correlated environments have significant and quantitatively measurable
impacts on the scaling properties of polymers and branched polymer structures
such as star polymers. These result in experimentally accessible effects on
their osmotic behavior in differently correlated environments.
We calculate these quantitative effects by appropriately extending a field theoretic
renormalization group approach for spin models in long range correlated disorder
[Weinrib and Halperin, Phys Rev B (1983)].
We find new universal scaling exponents for linear and star polymers in such
environments with consequences for their entropic behaviour as well as for the
effective interactions between these polymers. Surprisingly, these effects have
opposite signs for linear and star polymers. We predict quantitatively measurable
segregation effects at the interface between correlated and uncorrelated environments,
e.g. introduced by an aerogel-structure immersed in a solution of a mixture of
linear and star polymers.
Yu.H. was supported by FWF (Austria), Project P16574.
V Blavats’ka, C v Ferber, Yu Holovatch, Phys Rev E, 74 031801 (2006)