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Updated: Jun 26, 2025

Synthesis of Cyclic Polymers and Characterization of Their Diffusive Motion in the Melt State at the Single Molecule Level
Published on: September 26, 2016
Statistics of Gaussian polymer chains in harmonic applied fields
John P Mikhail1,2, Gregory C Rutledge1,2
1Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States of America.
Abstract:
The model of an ideal polymer chain in a harmonic applied field has broad applicability in situations involving polymer confinement and deformation due to applied stress. In this work we (1) formulate a general analytical model for a continuous Gaussian chain under a harmonic applied potential and (2) evaluate the statistical mechanics of this model given the potential, obtaining partition functions and moment generating functions (MGFs) that describe the chain configurations. Closed-form expressions for the squared radius of gyration, potential energy, partition function, and MGF for the center of mass are obtained for a general and multidimensional harmonic field. The expressions are compared with results of Monte Carlo simulations of a discrete Gaussian chain as well as results for related systems obtained from the literature. The theory derived here is used to test the applicability of the current model assumptions to relations from the literature describing polymer confinement and deformation in experiment, theory, and simulations.
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