Giant fluctuations of crosslink positions in gels

A tetrafunctional network of freely jointed rigid rods in 2 dimensions is studied. At equil., the network is in a highly swollen state. Surprisingly, such a network is a crit. object with large crosslink d. fluctuations on all length scales and anomalously low shear modulus. These conclusions are very different from the classical picture and raise questions of how large are crosslink fluctuations in real gels and rubbers. [on SciFinder(R)]