Related papers: Spontaneous Unknotting of a Polymer Confined in a …
Based on an estimate of the knot entropy of a worm-like chain we predict that the interplay of bending energy and confinement entropy will result in a compact metastable configuration of the knot that will diffuse, without spreading, along…
We analyze the nonequilibrium dynamics of single inextensible semiflexible biopolymers as stretching forces are applied at the ends. Based on different (contradicting) heuristic arguments, various scaling laws have been proposed for the…
Configurations of a single semiflexible polymer is studied when it is pushed into a nanochannel in the case where the polymer persistence length $l_p$ is much longer than the channel diameter $D$, i.e. $l_p/D \gg 1$. Using numerical…
We present a theoretical description of the dynamics of a semi-flexible polymer being pulled through a nanopore by an external force acting at the pore. Our theory is based on the tensile blob picture of Pincus in which the front of the…
We present a computer simulation study of the compact self-avoiding loops as regards their length and topological state. We use a Hamiltonian closed path on the cubic-shaped segment of a 3D cubic lattice as a model of a compact polymer. The…
In biology, there are several processes in which unfolded protein chains are transported along narrow-tube channels. Normally, without such a severe configurational constraint, unfolded polypeptides would not bind to each other. However,…
We present a scaling theory and Monte Carlo (MC) simulation results for a flexible polymer chain slowly dragged by one end into a nanotube. We also describe the situation when the completely confined chain is released and gradually leaves…
We study the interplay between entropy and topological constraints for a polymer chain in which sliding rings (slip-links) enforce pair contacts between monomers. These slip-links divide a closed ring polymer into a number of sub-loops…
Many experiments have been done to determine the relative strength of different knots, and these show that the break in a knotted rope almost invariably occurs at a point just outside the `entrance' to the knot. The influence of knots on…
We derive scaling relations for the extension statistics and the confinement free energy for a semi-flexible polymer confined to a channel with a rectangular cross-section. Our motivation are recent numerical results [Gupta {\em et al.},…
The non-equilibrium structural and dynamical properties of semiflexible polymers confined to two dimensions are investigated by molecular dynamics simulations. Three different scenarios are considered: The force-extension relation of…
Stochastic simulations are used to characterize the knotting distributions of random ring polymers confined in spheres of various radii. The approach is based on the use of multiple Markov chains and reweighting techniques, combined with…
Using a combination of the replica-exchange Monte Carlo algorithm and the multicanonical method, we investigate the influence of bending stiffness on the conformational phases of a bead-stick homopolymer model and present the pseudo-phase…
The interplay of geometrical and topological entanglement in semiflexible knotted polymer rings confined inside a spherical cavity is investigated using advanced numerical methods. By using stringent and robust algorithms for locating…
Semiflexible polymer models are widely used as a paradigm to understand structural phases in biomolecules including folding of proteins. Since stable knots are not so common in real proteins, the existence of stable knots in semiflexible…
We examine the ejection of an initially strongly confined flexible polymer from a spherical capsid through a nanoscale pore. We use molecular dynamics for unprecedentedly high initial monomer densities. We show that the time for an…
We study several related models of self-avoiding polygons in a tubular subgraph of the simple cubic lattice, with a particular interest in the asymptotics of the knotting statistics. Polygons in a tube can be characterised by a finite…
Theoretical results for the extension of a polymer confined to a channel are usually derived in the limit of infinite contour length. But experimental studies and simulations of DNA molecules confined to nanochannels are not necessarily in…
Drawing an analogy to the paradigm of quasi-elastic neutron scattering, we present a general approach for quantitatively investigating the spatiotemporal dependence of structural anisotropy relaxation in deformed polymers by using…
The size of a zero thickness (no excluded volume) polymer ring is shown to scale with chain length $N$ in the same way as the size of the excluded volume (self-avoiding) linear polymer, as $N^{\nu}$, where $\nu \approx 0.588$. The…