Abstract
Results of molecular simulations are presented for the entropy-driven collapse of a single chain in an athermal solvent. The mean square radius of gyration (〈Rg2〉) is calculated for a flexible chain of length N immersed in a hard-sphere medium having a specified solvent chemical potential. For a ratio of chain bead diameter to solvent diameter of 0.2 and packing fraction η=0.44, we find that 〈Rg2〉∝N2ν with ν∼0.36 for N⩾100; such exponent is consistent with that predicted by renormalization group arguments for the poor solvent regime (ν=1/3). The effects of chain length and density on 〈Rg2〉 are consistent with the predictions of the Edwards–Muthukumar theory for a chain in a quenched, random medium.
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