ABSTRACT
The star-branched, or radial, polymers have the structure of linked-together linear polymers with a low-molecular-weight core. Generally, the star polymer has smaller hydrodynamic dimensions than that of a linear polymer with an identical molecular weight. The interest in star polymers arises not only from the fact that they are model branched polymers but also from their enhanced segment densities. Zimm and Stockmayer were the first to study the conformation of star-shaped polymers [1]. Recently, Daoud and Cotton [2] have studied the conformation and dimension of a star polymer consisting of three regions: a central core, a shell with semidilute density in which the arms have unperturbed chain conformation, and an outer shell in which the arms of the star assume a self-avoiding conformation. Stars with multiarms (the critical number of arms is estimated to be of order 102) are expected to form a crystalline array near the overlap threshold (C*) [3].
