Computer simulation of relaxation phenomena in star-branched polymers, Temperature dependence

Dynamic Monte Carlo simulations of simple models of star-branched polymers were conducted. A model star macromolecule consisted of f = 3 arms of equal length with a total number of polymer segments up to 800. The chain was confined to a simple cubic lattice with simple nearest neighbor attractive interactions. The relaxation phenomena were studied by means of autocorrelation functions in wide ranges of temperatures. Short-time-scale dynamic processes in the entire star-branched chain were examined. It was found that under good solvent conditions the longest relaxation time of the end-to-center vector decreases with decreasing temperature. For low temperatures (below the Theta-point) where the chain is collapsed, the dependence of the relaxation time on the temperature is opposite.