Journal of Physical Studies 18(4), Article 4602 [8 pages] (2014)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.30970/jps.18.4602

UNIVERSAL SHAPE PROPERTIES OF A MESOSCOPIC POLYMER CHAIN

Ostap Kalyuzhnyi¹, Jaroslav Ilnytskyi², Yurij Holovatch²
¹Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Faculty of Chemistry,
6, Kyryla i Mefodija St., Lviv, UA--79005, Ukraine,
²Institute for Condensed Matter Physics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine,
1, Svientsitskii St., Lviv, UA--79011, Ukraine

In this paper we address the question of a shape which is acquired by the long flexible polymer macromolecule in a good solvent. In particular, we are interested in the universal shape properties that are shared by polymers of different chemical content and depend on the space dimension $d$ only. So far, the latter were analyzed mainly using the self-avoiding walk representation of a polymer chain. Here, we perform a series of simulations for a linear polymer chain using dissipative particle dynamics based on parametrized intermolecular potentials. Our results for the mean prolateness, asphericity and size ratio at $d=3$ are in a good agreement with available analytic and MC simulation data and give some evidence of the universality of polymer coil shape under more realistic conditions.

PACS number(s): 61.25.Hq, 61.20.Ja, 89.75.Da