Numerical determination of shear stress relaxation modulus of polymer glasses

Abstract: Focusing on simulated polymer glasses well below the glass transition, we confirm the validity and the efficiency of the recently proposed simple-average expression $G(t) = \mu_A - h(t)$ for the computational determination of the shear stress relaxation modulus $G(t)$. Here, $\mu_A = G(0)$ characterizes the affine shear transformation of the system at $t=0$ and $h(t)$ the mean-square displacement of the instantaneous shear stress as a function of time $t$. This relation is seen to be particulary useful for systems with quenched or sluggish transient shear stresses which necessarily arise below the glass transition. The commonly accepted relation $G(t)=c(t)$ using the shear stress auto-correlation function $c(t)$ becomes incorrect in this limit.