Competition of mesoscales and crossover to tricriticality in polymer solutions

被引：35

作者：

Anisimov, M.A. ^{[1
]}

Kostko, A.F. ^{[1
]}

Sengers, J.V. ^{[1
]}

机构：

[1] Department of Chemical Engineering, Inst. for Phys. Sci. and Technology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742

来源：

Physical Review E - Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics | 2002年 / 65卷 / 05期

关键词：

Asymptotic stability - Light scattering - Magnetic susceptibility - Mathematical models - Molecular weight - Polystyrenes - Solutions - Turbidity;

D O I：

10.1103/PhysRevE.65.051805

中图分类号：

学科分类号：

摘要：

We show that the approach to asymptotic fluctuation-induced critical behavior in polymer solutions is governed by a competition between a correlation length diverging at the critical point and an additional mesoscopic length-scale, the radius of gyration. Accurate light scattering experiments on polystyrene solutions in cyclohexane with polymer molecular weights ranging from 200000 up to 11.4×106 clearly demonstrate a crossover between two universal regimes: a regime with Ising asymptotic critical behavior, where the correlation length prevails, and a regime with tricritical θ-point behavior determined by a mesoscopic polymerchain length. © 2002 The American Physical Society.

引用

页码：1 / 051805