Dynamics of a self-avoiding polymer chain in slit, tube, and cube confinements

Abstract

Monte Carlo simulations are presented for the observation of the dynamics of a self-avoiding polymer in three types of confinement: slit, tube, and cube. We pay special attention to the parameter regime where the characteristic confinement dimension is smaller than the radius of gyration of the unconfined polymer. On the basis of the bond-fluctuation model, we measured the rotation time of the end-to-end vector of the polymer, the diffusion time for the center of the polymer to move a distance comparable to the root mean square end-to-end distance, and the looping time for the ends of the polymer to approach each other from an open position. As functions of the confinement width and polymer length, these three time scales are discussed in light of scaling theories.