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Publication
Physical Review Letters
Paper
Anomalous elasticity of polymer cholesterics
Abstract
We show that polymer cholesterics have much longer pitches than comparable short molecule cholesterics, due to their anomalous elasticity. The pitch P of a chiral mixture with concentration c near the racemic (nonchiral) concentration c* diverges similar to |c-c*|-, with =1.430.04 (for short molecule cholesterics, =1). The short molecule law is recovered for polymers of finite molecular length once the pitch is longer than a length that diverges similar to with =0.670.01. Our predictions could be tested by measurements of the pitch in DNA. © 1995 The American Physical Society.