Instruct: Identify the main and secondary category of Arxiv papers based on the titles and abstracts
Query: Thermal Degradation of Unstrained Single Polymer Chain: Non-linear
  Effects at Work   We examine the thermally-induced fracture of an unstrained polymer chain of
discrete segments coupled by an anharmonic potential by means of Molecular
Dynamics simulation with a Langevin thermostat. Cases of both under- and
over-damped dynamics are investigated, and a comparison with recent studies of
bond scission in model polymers with harmonic interactions is performed. We
find that the polymer degradation changes qualitatively between the inertial
regime and that of heavily damped dynamics. The role of bond healing
(recombination) is also studied and probability distributions for the
recombination times and overstretched bond lengths are obtained.
  Our extensive simulations reveal many properties of the scission dynamics in
agreement with the notion of random breakdown of independent bonds, e.g., the
mean time of chain rupture, $<\tau>$ follows an Arrhenian behavior with
temperature $T$, and depends on the number of bonds $N$ in the polymer as
$<\tau> \propto N^{-1}$. In contrast, the rupture rates of the individual bonds
along the polymer backbone indicate clearly the presence of self-induced
inhomogeneity resulting from the interplay of thermal noise and nonlinearity.
  Eventually we examine the fragmentation kinetics during thermolysis. We
demonstrate that both the probability distribution function of fragment sizes
as well as the mean length of fragments at subsequent times $t$ characterize
degradation as predominantly a first order reaction.

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The categories of this paper are: solv-int
18
The categories of this paper are: econ
11
The categories of this paper are: hep-lat
20
The categories of this paper are: acc-phys
34
The categories of this paper are: chem-ph
21
The categories of this paper are: adap-org
25
The categories of this paper are: patt-sol
9
The categories of this paper are: nlin
5
The categories of this paper are: gr-qc
19
The categories of this paper are: eess
31
The categories of this paper are: ao-sci
0
The categories of this paper are: hep-ph
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The categories of this paper are: comp-gas
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The categories of this paper are: chao-dyn
1
The categories of this paper are: cs
10
The categories of this paper are: q-bio