Importance of the difference between maximum and average tube length fluctuations of entangled polymers*

Classical analysis of tube length fluctuations (TLF) in entangled polymer solutions and melts includes only mean fluctuations and strongly underestimates the effect of TLF. We show that maximum fluctuations lead to additional logarithmic time dependence of stress relaxation function $\mu(t)$ that varies with time $t$ at $t<\tau_R$ as $\mu(t)\sim t^{1/4}\log t$ instead of $\mu(t)\sim t^{1/4}$, where $\tau_R$ is Rouse time. At $\tau_R

*We would like to acknowledge financial support from the NSF under grant CHE-0911588

To cite this abstract, use the following reference: http://meetings.aps.org/link/BAPS.2010.MAR.T17.1