Sharp Crossover of the Susceptibility in Polymer Solutions near the Critical Demixing Point

Abstract

We have observed a sharp and nonmonotonic crossover of the susceptibility (osmotic compressibility) from mean-field to Ising critical behavior in semidilute solutions of polystyrene in deuterocyclohexane as the temperature decreases from the $\ensuremath{\Theta}$ region down to the critical temperature of the phase separation. We describe this crossover in terms of a competition between the long-range but finite intramolecular correlations of monomers in the polymer chain and the diverging correlation length of concentration fluctuations.