Frustration in polymers

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Abstract
The local configuration of polymers results from a competition between entropy effects and attractive forces which provide a high density. The resulting frustration is studied geometrically in a curved space representation reminiscent of the curved space representation for blue phases. Within this frame work, we study the occurrence of nematic and cholesteric order and make some suggestions for further studies in molten polymers as a function of the number of neighbouring chains of a given chain and of the persistence length. An interesting isomorphism between locally dense-packed strings of flexible chains and Platonic deltahedra is demonstrated