Extensible links in a broad class of single polymer chain models (opens in new tab)

The physics of polymer chains is often probed using molecular stretching experiments and various idealized single-chain models. The majority of these models consist of a discrete sequence of links, which may be treated as rigid or extensible. Although such models are well established and many specific extensible variants have been proposed, no generally applicable theory has been presented. Moreover, most existing treatments are heuristic rather...