Angular correlations in dense solutions and melts of flexible polymer chains
are investigated with respect to the distance r between the bonds by
comparing quantitative predictions of perturbation calculations with numerical
data obtained by Monte Carlo simulation of the bond-fluctuation model. We
consider both monodisperse systems and grand-canonical (Flory-distributed)
equilibrium polymers. Density effects are discussed as well as finite chain
length corrections. The intrachain bond-bond correlation function P(r) is
shown to decay as P(r)∼1/r3 for \xi \ll r \ll \r^* with ξ being
the screening length of the density fluctuations and r∗∼N1/3 a novel
length scale increasing slowly with (mean) chain length N.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication at Macromolecule