parison of the total segment density profiles of the linear and star polymers with the
same total number of segments shows that the two profiles are similar with slight
difference in their contact densities. However, the distribution of the individual seg-
ments in the linear and star polymers is different. The density of the mid-segments
of the star polymer near the surface is lower than that of the linear polymer due to
conformational constraints. These constraints are highly severe on the articulation
segment of the star polymer. These theoretical results show quantitative agreement
with the results from molecular simulations.
The structure of two confined star polymers having different number of arms but
same total number of segments, is also compared. Again the total density profiles of
the two star polymers are similar, suggesting that the total segment density profiles of
the confined athermal polymers are not very sensitive to the molecular architecture.
However, the distribution of the individual segments is quite different. Both the
end- and mid-segment densities of the star polymer near the surface decrease as the
number of arms in the star polymer increases.
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