  Spatial distributions are presented that quantitatively capture how polymer
properties (e.g., segment alignment, density, and potential energy) vary with
distance from nascent polymer crystals (nuclei) in prototypical polyethylene
melts. It is revealed that the spatial extent of nuclei and their interfaces is
metric-dependent as is the extent to which nucleus interiors are solid-like. As
distance from a nucleus increases, some properties, such as density, decay to
melt-like behavior more rapidly than polymer segment alignment, indicating that
a polymer nucleus resides in a nematic-like droplet. This nematic-like droplet
region coincides with enhanced formation of ordered polymer segments that are
not part of the nucleus. It is more favourable to find non-constituent ordered
polymer segments near a nucleus than in the surrounding metastable melt,
pointing to the possibility of one nucleus inducing the formation of other
nuclei. These findings provide a conceptual bridge between polymer crystal
nucleation under non-flow and flow conditions, and are used to rationalize
previous results.
