ABSTRACT Conformational response of a polymer chain is examined as a function of monomer-monomer (attractive and repulsive) interactions. The multi-scale dynamics of the monomer and that of the center of mass of the polymer chain is found to depend strongly on the magnitude of attractive monomer-monomer interactions and less sensitive to their repulsive interactions. The scaling analysis of the radius of gyration with the molecular weight and that of the structure factor with the wave vector show that the polymer chain conforms to a random-coil with neutral to repulsive and weak attractive monomer-monomer interactions and collapses to a globular configuration on increasing the strength of attractive interaction. The radius of gyration of the polymer chain is found to decay slowly but linearly on reducing the repulsive monomer-monomer interactions and collapse on increasing attractive interactions.
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