String-like Collective Motion in the alpha and beta relaxation of a Coarse-Grained Polymer Melt

Published

March 14, 2018

Author(s)

Jack F. Douglas, Francis W. Starr, Beatriz Betancourt

Abstract

Relaxation in glass-forming liquids occurs as a multi-stage process involving cooperative molecular motion. First, there is a `fast' relaxation process dominated by the inertial motion of the molecules whose scale grows upon heating, followed by a longer time alpha -relaxation process involving large scale diffusive motion. Our molecular dynamics simulations of a coarse-grained glass-forming polymer melt indicate that the fast collective motion becomes progressively suppressed approaching the glass-transition, necessitating large-scale collective motion by diffusion for the material to relax. In each relaxation regime, relaxation occurs through collective particle exchange motions having a similar geometrical form and quantitative relationships are derived relating the fast `stringlet' collective motion to the string-like collective motion at long times associated with the thermally activated diffusive motion.

Citation

Physical Review Letters

Pub Type

Journals

Keywords

alpha and beta relaxation, string-like cooperative motion, equilibrium polymerization, polymer melt

Citation

Douglas, J. , Starr, F. and Betancourt, B. (2018), String-like Collective Motion in the alpha and beta relaxation of a Coarse-Grained Polymer Melt, Physical Review Letters (Accessed October 18, 2025)