Statistics of tumbling of a single polymer molecule in shear flow

Abstract

We present experimental results on statistics of polymer orientation angles relatively to shear plane and tumbling times in shear flow with thermal noise. Strong deviation of probability distribution functions (PDF) of these parameters from Gaussian was observed and a good accord with theory was found. The scaling relations of PDF widths for both angles as a function of the control parameter $Wi$ are verified and compared with numerics. An universal exponential PDF tail for the tumbling times and its predicted scaling with $Wi$ are also tested experimentally against numerics.