Long-range interactions in polymer melts : The anti-casimir effect

It is well known that small neutral particles normally tend to aggregate due to the van der Waals forces. We discover a new universal long-range interaction between solid objects in polymer media that is directly opposite the van der Waals attraction. The new force could reverse the sign of the net...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2005-07, Vol.95 (3), p.038305.1-038305.4, Article 038305
Main Authors: OBUKHOV, S. P, SEMENOV, A. N
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied sciences
Exact sciences and technology
Organic polymers
Physicochemistry of polymers
Properties and characterization
Structure, morphology and analysis
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Summary:It is well known that small neutral particles normally tend to aggregate due to the van der Waals forces. We discover a new universal long-range interaction between solid objects in polymer media that is directly opposite the van der Waals attraction. The new force could reverse the sign of the net interaction, possibly leading to the net repulsion. This universal repulsion comes from the subtracted soft fluctuation modes, which are not present in the real polymer system, but rather are in its ideal counterpart. The predicted effect has a deep relation to the classical Casimir interactions, providing an unusual example of fluctuation-induced repulsion instead of normal attraction. That is why it is referred to as the anti-Casimir effect. We also find that the correlation function of monomer units in a concentrated solution of infinite polymer chains follows a power-law rather than an exponential decay at large distances.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.95.038305