Microscopic theory of linear, entangled polymer chains under rapid deformation including chain stretch and convective constraint release

A series of refinements to the Doi-Edwards model of reptation in entangled linear polymers that extend it into the strongly nonlinear regime of chain stretch are presented. In addition to reptation, the effects of finite rate retraction and convective constraint release are included. All of these processes are accounted for in a microscopic stochastic partial differential equation of the motion of the chain contour from which the model is derived.