Kinetically driven helix formation during the homopolymer collapse process
Soft Condensed Matter
2008-03-10 v1
Abstract
Using Langevin simulations, we find that simple 'generic' bead-and-spring homopolymer chains in a sufficiently bad solvent spontaneously develop helical order during the process of collapsing from an initially stretched conformation. The helix formation is initiated by the unstable modes of the straight chain, which drive the system towards a long-lived metastable transient state. The effect is most pronounced if hydrodynamic interactions are screened.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0803.1070,
title = {Kinetically driven helix formation during the homopolymer collapse process},
author = {Sid Ahmed Sabeur and Fatima Hamdache and Friederike Schmid},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0803.1070},
year = {2008}
}
Comments
4 pages, 4 figures