Accurate statistics of a flexible polymer chain in shear flow

Abstract

We present exact and analytically accurate results for the problem of a flexible polymer chain in shear flow. Under such a flow the polymer tumbles, and the probability distribution of the tumbling times $\tau$ of the polymer decays exponentially as $\sim \exp (-\alpha \tau /{\tau }_0)$ (where ${\tau }_0$ is the longest relaxation time). We show that for a Rouse chain, this nontrivial constant $\alpha$ can be calculated in the limit of large Weissenberg number (high shear rate) and is in excellent agreement with our simulation result of $\alpha \simeq 0.324$. We also derive exactly the distribution functions for the length and the orientational angles of the end-to-end vector of the polymer.

4 pages, 2 figures. Minor changes. Texts differ slightly from the PRL published version

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• Dynamics of a polymer under multi-gradient fields
• Simulation of tethered oligomers in nanochannels using multi-particle collision dynamics
• Tumbling of a rigid rod in a shear flow
• Transport and tumbling of polymers in viscoelastic shear flow
• Dynamics of a flexible polymer in planar mixed flow