 Polymer overlap volume fraction

The polymer overlap volume fraction counts the segment volume of one chain divided by its coil volume. If the segment volume is $v_0$ and $R\sim b{N}^{\nu }$, then ${\varphi }^{\ast }\sim (v_0/b^3)N^{1-3\nu }$. The site-volume convention $v_0\sim b^3$ gives $N^{-4/5}$ for the three-dimensional Flory approximation and $N^{-1/2}$ for an ideal chain. A geometric coil volume such as $4\pi R_g^3/3$ changes a prefactor; segment length and segment volume are not generally interchangeable without a model convention.