Theory of diffusion-controlled intrachain reactions of polymers. II.

Abstract

As a continuation of a previous paper, an analysis is made of the diffusion-controlled ring closure reaction of a harmonic spring model of polymers for the case of finite k (k being an intrinsic second-order reaction rate constant). The upper bound and the lower bound for an apparent first-order reaction rate constant k1 are calculated by the variational principle of Rayleigh—Ritz and that of Doi respectively. These bounds are foundto have very close values, and with the use of them, the error producedby the closure approximation is estimated for all values of k. © 1976 The Society of Polymer Science, Japan.