Phase transitions in homogeneous biopolymers: basic concepts and methods
Abstract
The basic models of helix-coil transitions in biomolecules are introduced. These include phenomenological, zipper (Bragg-Zimm) models of polypeptides, loop-entropy (Poland-Scheraga) and Hamiltonian (Peyrard-Bishop) models of homogeneous DNA denaturation. The transfer integral approach to one-dimensional thermodynamics is presented in some detail, including the necessary extensions to deal with the singular integral equations arising in the case of on-site potentials with a flat top. The (non-)applicability of the theorems which prohibit phase transitions in one-dimensional systems is discussed.
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0210188,
title = {Phase transitions in homogeneous biopolymers: basic concepts and methods},
author = {N. Theodorakopoulos},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0210188},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
Proceedings of the conference on Localization and Energy Transfer in Nonlinear Systems, June 17-21, 2002, San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Madrid, Spain; to be published by World Scientific (pedagogical review article). 23 pages, 3 Figs