Behavior of a polymer chain in a critical binary solvent

Author: Stapper M.   Vilgis T. A.  

Publisher: Edp Sciences

E-ISSN: 1286-4854|42|1|7-12

ISSN: 0295-5075

Source: EPL (EUROPHYSICS LETTERS), Vol.42, Iss.1, 2010-03, pp. : 7-12

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Abstract

We present a field-theoretic renormalization group analysis of apolymer chain immersed in a binary good solvent close to its criticaldemixing point. We first show that this problem can be mapped on abicritical field theory, i.e. a $({\mit\Phi}^{2})^{2}$-model with a mass anisotropy.This implies that the end-to-end distance of the polymer is now controlledby a new critical exponent $\nu_{B}$ related to the quadratic mass anisotropyoperator B. To show this, we solve the RG equation and calculate explicitly the exponents and the mean end-to-end length of the chain.