ABSTRACT

Glossary of Sym bols.......................................................................... 572

References............................................................................................. 573

1 Introduction

Polymers in the liquid (solution, melt) or liquid like (rubber) state display peculiar viscoelastic and transport properties which determine their

processing characteristics and applications to a large extent.1 These properties are also of basic interest and a molecular understanding is required. Polymers are mesoscopic objects with relevant length scales from the single bond length on an atomic scale to the over all chain dimension reaching 100 nm and more. These vastly different length scales are accompanied by a large variety of time scales starting in the pico­ second regime and reaching to macroscopic times. The dynamics involve both universal chain properties at large scales as well as features due to the special chemical structure of the building blocks at short scales.