Scale-free static and dynamical correlations in melts of monodisperse and Flory-distributed homopolymers: A review of recent bond-fluctuation model studies

Abstract

It has been assumed until very recently that all long-range correlations are screened in three-dimensional melts of linear homopolymers on distances beyond the correlation length $ξ$ characterizing the decay of the density fluctuations. Summarizing simulation results obtained by means of a variant of the bond-fluctuation model with finite monomer excluded volume interactions and topology violating local and global Monte Carlo moves, we show that due to an interplay of the chain connectivity and the incompressibility constraint, both static and dynamical correlations arise on distances $r \gg ξ$. These correlations are scale-free and, surprisingly, do not depend explicitly on the compressibility of the solution. Both monodisperse and (essentially) Flory-distributed equilibrium polymers are considered.