  The dynamics of flexible polymer molecules are often assumed to be governed
by hydrodynamics of the solvent. However there is considerable evidence that
internal dissipation of a polymer contributes as well. Here we investigate the
dynamics of a single chain in the absence of solvent to characterize the nature
of this internal friction. We model the chains as freely hinged but with
localized bond angles and 3-fold symmetric dihedral angles. We show that the
damping is close but not identical to Kelvin damping, which depends on the
first temporal and second spatial derivative of monomer position. With no
internal potential between monomers, the magnitude of the damping is small for
long wavelengths and weakly damped oscillatory time dependent behavior is seen
for a large range of spatial modes. When the size of the internal potential is
increased, such oscillations persist, but the damping becomes larger. However
underdamped motion is present even with quite strong dihedral barriers for long
enough wavelengths.
