The origin of dynamic scaling in dilute polymer solutions

Abstract

The hydrodynamic radius of a polymer chain, obtained using Brownian dynamics simulations of the continuum Edwards model, is found to obey a crossover in the excluded volume parameter z, which is significantly different from that observed for the radius of gyration. It is shown that this difference arises from contributions due to dynamic correlations to the diffusivity, which are ignored in the commonly used definition of hydrodynamic radius based on the Kirkwood expression. The swelling of the hydrodynamic radius from the theta-state, obtained from simulations, shows remarkable agreement with experimental measurements.