Validation and refinement of unified analytic model for flexible, semiflexible and stiff polymer melt entanglement*

Two of us recently proposed [R. S. Hoy and M. Kröger, Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 147801 (2020)] analytic expressions for the reduced entanglement length L_e/l_K, tube diameter a/l_K, and plateau modulus Gl_K³/k_BT of polymer melts that unified previously-incompatible scaling theories for flexible, semiflexible and stiff polymers. In this talk, we stress-test these expressions by checking whether they remain valid when a different topological analysis (TA) method and different Ne-estimators are employed, and by comparing them to the available experimental data on flexible, semiflexible and stiff polymer melts. We find that when we correct for all known sources of systematic error in N_e-estimation (e.g. chain-end effects and the non-Gaussian statistics of primitive paths) and reduce our statistical uncertainties by sampling large numbers of model well-entangled melts, we obtain simplified versions of our original expressions that (i) quantitatively match bead-spring simulation data over the entire range of chain stiffnesses for which melts remain isotropic, and (ii) semiquantitatively match all available experimental data.