Related papers: Fluctuating semiflexible polymer ribbon constraine…
Semiflexible polymers are widely used as a paradigm for understanding structural phases in biomolecules including folding of proteins. Here, we compare bead-spring and bead-stick variants of coarse-grained semiflexible polymer models that…
Solutions of semiflexible polymers confined by repulsive planar walls are studied by density functional theory and Molecular Dynamics simulations, to clarify the competition between the chain alignment favored by the wall and the depletion…
In this article we address the problem of Euler's buckling instability in a charged semi-flexible polymer that is under the action of a compressive force. We consider this instability as a phase transition and investigate the role of…
Ring, or cyclic, polymers have unique properties compared to linear polymers, due to their topologically closed structure that has no beginning or end. Experimental measurements on molecular ring polymers are challenging due to their…
We study the statistical mechanics of grafted polymers of arbitrary stiffness in a two-dimensional embedding space with Monte Carlo simulations. The probability distribution function of the free end is found to be highly anisotropic and…
In this work we present the general phase behavior of short tubelike flexible polymers. The geometric thickness constraint is implemented through the concept of the global radius of curvature. We use sophisticated Monte Carlo sampling…
We develop a scaling theory to describe dynamic fluctuations of a semiflexible polymer and find several distinct regimes. We performed simulations to characterize the longitudinal and transverse dynamics; using ensemble averaging for a…
The miscibility of polymer blends, a classical problem in polymer science, may be altered, if one or both of the component do not have chain ends. Based on the idea of {\it topological volume}, we propose a mean-field theory to clarify how…
I consider the problem of a thin membrane on which a metric has been prescribed, for example by lithographically controlling the local swelling properties of a polymer thin film. While any amount of swelling can be accommodated locally,…
We study how an active bath is transduced into the internal fluctuation spectrum of a semiflexible polymer. Starting from the statistics of active forces exerted by an explicit bath of active Brownian particles, we derive an effective…
The cytoskeleton is an inhomogeneous network of semi-flexible filaments, which are involved in a wide variety of active biological processes. Although the cytoskeletal filaments can be very stiff and embedded in a dense and cross-linked…
Loops undergoing thermal fluctuations are prevalent in nature. Ring-like or cross-linked polymers, cyclic macromolecules, and protein-mediated DNA loops all belong to this category. Stability of these molecules are generally described in…
Here, we provide an overview of theoretical approaches to semiflexible polymers and their networks. Such semiflexible polymers have large bending rigidities that can compete with the entropic tendency of a chain to crumple up into a random…
We investigate experimentally the distribution of configurations of a ring with an elementary topological constraint, a ``figure-8'' twist. Using vibrated granular chains, which permit controlled preparation and direct observation of such a…
We study the effects of thermal fluctuations on elastic rings. Analytical expressions are derived for correlation functions of Euler angles, mean square distance between points on the ring contour, radius of gyration, and probability…
The elastic response is studied of a single flexible chain grafted on a rigid plane and an ensemble of non-interacting tethered chains. It is demonstrated that the entropic theory of rubber elasticity leads to conclusions that disagree with…
We consider random walk model of a semi-flexible polymer chain on a square and a cubic lattice to enumerate conformations of the polymer chain in two and three dimensions, respectively. The bending energy of the chain is assumed as the key…
We present Monte Carlo computer simulations for melts of semiflexible randomly knotted and randomly concatenated ring polymers on the fcc lattice and in slit confinement. Through systematic variation of the slit width at fixed melt density,…
We use nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations to verify recent tube-model predictions that associative polymer networks exhibit broad stretch fluctuations during elongational flow. Simulations further show that these fluctuating…
We report simulation results on melts of entangled linear polymers confined in a free-standing thin film. We study how the geometric constraints imposed by the confinement alter the entanglement state of the system compared to the…