Preaveraging description of polymer nonequilibrium stretching.

Abstract

This article focuses on a preaveraging description of polymer nonequilibrium stretching, where a single polymer undergoes a transient process from equilibrium to nonequilibrium steady state by pulling one chain end. The preaveraging method combined with mode analysis reduces the original Langevin equation to a simplified form for both a stretched steady state and an equilibrium state, even in the presence of self-avoiding repulsive interactions spanning a long range. However, the transient stretching process exhibits evolution of a hierarchal regime structure, which means a qualitative temporal change in probabilistic distributions assumed in preaveraging. We investigate the preaveraging method for evolution of the regime structure with consideration of the nonequilibrium work relations and deviations from the fluctuation-dissipation relation.