Relaxation of a semiflexible grafted polymer

The relaxation of single grafted semiflexible chains freely rotating around the grafting point is investigated by means of two dimensional computer simulations and scaling arguments. Both free chains and chains surrounded by topological obstacles are considered. We compute the autocorrelation of the end-to-end vector for the whole chain and for terminal sections of various lengths. Our results are relevant for the relaxation of star polymers with stiff arms or branched semiflexible polymers moving in an array of obstacles. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3499743]