L. Lue
Submitted to Journal of Chemical Physics
A free energy model is developed for polymer chains in good solvents. This model, which combines the ideas of polymer field theory with liquidstate theory, is valid in the dilute, semidilute, and concentrated regimes. The corresponding equation of state is compared against computer simulation data for tangent hardsphere chain fluids. At low concentrations, it accurately describes the thermodynamics of tangent hardsphere chains, reproducing the universal scaling behavior of long chains. At high concentrations, it is of comparable accuracy as previous equations of state for tangent hardsphere chains.