Physics – Condensed Matter – Soft Condensed Matter
Scientific paper
2000-11-27
Physics
Condensed Matter
Soft Condensed Matter
RevTeX, 13 pages, 20 PS figures. Accepted for publication in Macromol. Theory Simul
Scientific paper
We study conformations assumed by single diblock star copolymers in a poor solvent by means of the Gaussian variational theory and Monte Carlo simulation in continuous space. Cases of stars with internal and external hydrophobic blocks are analysed. While in the former case the collapsed state has an obvious micellar shape, the latter case exhibits two nontrivial conformational structures. Apart from the equilibrium state of a globular hydrophobic core with hydrophilic daisy loops, one also finds here a metastable state of outstretched hydrophilic blocks with hydrophobic subglobules at their ends. Such a state appears to be rather long-lived during the kinetics of collapse of a swollen star. The plots of monomer densities and other observables computed by both techniques are found to be in good agreement with each other.
Ganazzoli F.
Kuznetsov Yu. A.
Timoshenko Edward G.
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