  We examine nonequilibrium features of collapse behavior in model polymers
with competing crystallization and glass transitions using extensive molecular
dynamics simulations. By comparing to "colloidal" systems with no covalent
bonds but the same non-bonded interactions, we find three principal results:
(i) Tangent-sphere polymers and colloids, in the equilibrium-crystallite phase,
have nearly identical static properties when the temperature T is scaled by the
crystallization temperature T_{cryst}; (ii) Qualitative features of
nonequilibrium relaxation below T_{cryst}, measured by the evolution of local
structural properties (such as the number of contacts) toward equilibrium
crystallites, are the same for polymers and colloids; and (iii) Significant
quantitative differences in rearrangements in polymeric and colloidal
crystallites, in both far-from equilibrium and near-equilibrium systems, can be
understood in terms of chain connectivity. These results have important
implications for understanding slow relaxation processes in collapsed polymers,
partially folded, misfolded, and intrinsically disordered proteins.
