Mean-field techniques provide a rather accurate description of single-chain
conformations in spatially inhomogeneous polymer systems containing interfaces
or surfaces. Intermolecular correlations, however, are not described by the
mean-field approach and information about the distribution of distance between
different molecules is lost. Based on the knowledge of the exact equilibrium
single-chain properties in contact with solid substrates, we generate
multi-chain configurations that serve as nearly equilibrated starting
configurations for molecular dynamics simulations by utilizing the packing
algorithm of Auhl and co-workers [J. Chem. Phys. 119, 12718 (2003)] for
spatially inhomogeneous systems, i.e., a thin polymer film confined between two
solid substrates. The single-chain conformations are packed into the thin film
conserving the single-chain properties and simultaneously minimizing local
fluctuations of the density. The extent to which enforcing the
near-incompressibility of a dense polymer liquid during the packing process is
able to re-establish intermolecular correlations is investigated by monitoring
intermolecular correlation functions and the structure function of density
fluctuations as a function of the distance from the confining solid substrates.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figure