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Entropic characterization of the coil-stretch transition of polymers in random flows
F Sultanov1,2, M Sultanova1,2, G Falkovich1,3
1Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, Moscow region 142432, Russia.
Abstract:
Polymer molecules in a flow undergo a coil-stretch phase transition on an increase of the velocity gradients. Model-independent identification and characterization of the transition in a random flow has been lacking so far. Here we suggest to use the entropy of the extension statistics as a proper measure due to strong fluctuations around the transition. We measure experimentally the entropy as a function of the local Weisenberg number and show that it has a maximum, which identifies and quantifies the transition. We compare the new approach with the traditional one based on the theory using either linear Oldroyd-B or nonlinear finite extensible nonlinear elastic polymer models.
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