Polymer Dynamics in Chaotic Flows
with a Strong Shear Component¹

K. S. Turitsyn

Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, Moscow, 119334 Russia

Theoretical Division, LANL, Los Alamos, NM, 87545 USA

e-mail: tur@itp.ac.ru

Received January 31, 2007

Abstract—We consider the dynamics of a polymer molecule injected into a chaotic flow with a strong mean
shear component. The polymer experiences aperiodic tumbling in such flows. We consider a simplified model
of the chaotic velocity field given by the superposition of a steady shear flow and a large-scale isotropic short-
correlated random component. In the framework of this model, we present a detailed study of the statistical
properties of single-polymer dynamics. We obtain the stationary probability distribution function of the poly-
mer orientation, find the distribution of time periods between consequent events of tumbling, and find the tails
of the polymer size distribution.

PACS numbers: 83.80.Rs, 83.50.Ax

DOI: 10.1134/S1063776107090245

Pleiades Publishing home page | journal home page | top

If you have any problems with this server, contact webmaster.