English

Unzipping DNA by force: thermodynamics and finite size behaviour

Soft Condensed Matter 2007-05-23 v1

Abstract

We discuss the thermodynamic behaviour near the force induced unzipping transition of a double stranded DNA in two different ensembles. The Y-fork is identified as the coexisting phases in the fixed distance ensemble. From finite size scaling of thermodynamic quantities like the extensibility, the length of the unzipped segment of a Y-fork, the phase diagram can be recovered. We suggest that such procedures could be used to obtain the thermodynamic phase diagram from experiments on finite length DNA.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0511531,
  title  = {Unzipping DNA by force: thermodynamics and finite size behaviour},
  author = {Rajeev Kapri and Somendra M. Bhattacharjee},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0511531},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

10 pages, accepted for publication in special issue of Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter