Interacting living polymers confined between two surfaces.

We present predictions on the equilibrium behavior of solutions of living polymers confined in a gap between surfaces, including the ensuing potential of mean force between those surfaces (the disjoining potential). We highlight the occurrence of a transition upon narrowing the gap, which arises from a cooperative simultaneous increase of the local density and degree of polymerization. At this transition, many properties of the confined solution, including the disjoining potential, change by orders of magnitude over a minute change of the surface separation. These results were obtained owing to two extensions to a previously introduced self-consistent field-propagator formalism. (i) We derive this formalism from a free-energy functional of the distribution of chain lengths and configurations. This enables evaluation of thermodynamic properties, including the disjoining potential. (ii) We solved for a system confined between two surfaces.