Atomistic study of macroscopic analogs to short-chain molecules.

We use a bath of chaotic surface waves in water to mechanically and macroscopically mimic the thermal behavior of a short articulated chain with only nearest-neighbor interactions. The chaotic waves provide isotropic and random agitation to which a temperature can be ascribed, allowing the chain to passively explore its degrees of freedom in analogy to thermal motion. We track the chain in real time and infer end-to-end potentials using Boltzmann statistics. We extrapolate our results, by using Monte Carlo simulations of self-avoiding polymers, to lengths not accessible in our system. In the long-chain limit we demonstrate universal scaling of the statistical parameters of all chains in agreement with well-known predictions for self-avoiding walks. However, we find that the behavior of chains below a characteristic length scale fundamentally differs. We find that short chains have much greater compressional stiffness than would be expected. However, chains rapidly soften as length increases to meet with expected scalings.