Selection of length distributions in living polymers

Abstract

The steady state distribution of polymer (or micelle) lengths under nonequilbrium conditions in which monomers are continuously extracted from a system is studied. The dynamical equations describing this process exhibit a one-parameter family of steady state distributions. A study of the dynamical equations suggests that they exhibit either a linear marginal or nonlinear marginal selection, depending on the control parameters of the model. The selection is explicitly demonstrated for a simplified linear version of the dynamical equations. © 1994 The American Physical Society.