Relaxation Behavior of the Freely Jointed Chain

Abstract

A method is presented for treating the relaxation behavior of the freely jointed chain model of a random coil polymer. Exact results are exhibited for the relaxation of quantities linear in chain coordinates. For the treatment of quantities quadratic in chain coordinates, a numerical approach is employed and exemplified by obtaining the autocorrelation in the square of end‐to‐end length for chains of up to 16 beads. In both cases, the rapid approach of the behavior of the freely jointed chain of N beads to that of the Rouse model of N statistical segments is demonstrated.