Related papers: Thickness-dependent secondary structure formation …
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…
In this work we investigate structural properties of native states of a simple model for short flexible homopolymers, where the steric influence of monomeric side chains is effectively introduced by a thickness constraint. This geometric…
We present the results of analytic calculations and numerical simulations of the behaviour of a new class of chain molecules which we call thick polymers. The concept of the thickness of such a polymer, viewed as a tube, is encapsulated by…
Based upon kinetic Monte Carlo simulations of crystallization in a simple polymer model we present a new picture of the mechanism by which the thickness of lamellar polymer crystals is constrained to a value close to the minimum…
Confinement is a versatile and well-established tool to study the properties of polymers either to understand biological processes or to develop new nano-biomaterials. We investigate the conformations of a semiflexible polymer ring in weak…
We study the effects of two kinds of interactions in tube-like polymers and demonstrate that they result in the formation of secondary motifs. The first has an entropic origin and is a measure of the effective space available to the…
We study how confinement affects topology and conformations in polymer films of varying thickness $h$. The knotting probability exhibits a maximum at intermediate thicknesses near the bulk radius of gyration $h \approx R_\mathrm{g,bulk}$,…
The interplay of topological constraints and persistence length of ring polymers in their own melt is investigated by means of dynamical Monte Carlo simulations of a three dimensional lattice model. We ask if the results are consistent with…
We consider the continuum limit of a recently-introduced model for discretized thick polymers, or tubes. We address both analytically and numerically how the polymer thickness influences the decay of tangent-tangent correlations and find…
We propose and solve a simple model describing secondary structure formation in random hetero-polymers. It describes monomers with a combination of one-dimensional short-range interactions (representing steric forces and hydrogen bonds) and…
The rapid collapse of a polymer, due to external forces or changes in solvent, yields a long-lived `crumpled globule.' The conjectured fractal structure shaped by hierarchical collapse dynamics has proved difficult to establish, even with…
Based upon kinetic Monte Carlo simulations of crystallization in a simple polymer model we present a new picture of the mechanism by which the thickness of lamellar polymer crystals is constrained to a value close to the minimum…
Recently it has been shown that a two-dimensional model of self-attracting polymers based on attracting segments displays two phase transitions, a theta-like collapse between swollen polymers and a globular state and another between the…
By means of extensive replica-exchange simulations of generic coarse-grained models for helical polymers, we systematically investigate the structural transitions into all possible helical phases for flexible and semiflexible elastic…
The statistical mechanics of a long knotted collapsed polymer is determined by a free-energy with a knot-dependent subleading term, which is linked to the length of the shortest polymer that can hold such knot. The only other parameter…
Two-dimensional semiflexible polymer rings are studied both by imaging circular DNA adsorbed on a mica surface and by Monte Carlo simulations of phantom polymers as well as of polymers with finite thickness. Comparison of size and shape of…
We introduce a class of models of semiflexible polymers. The latter are characterized by a strong rigidity, the correlation length associated to the gradient-gradient correlations, called the persistence length, being of the same order as…
Proteins form a very important class of polymers. In spite of major advances in the understanding of polymer science, the protein problem has remained largely unsolved. Here, we show that a polymer chain viewed as a tube not only captures…
Confinement can have a dramatic effect on the behavior of all sorts of particulate systems and it therefore is an important phenomenon in many different areas of physics and technology. Here, we investigate the role played by the softness…
Changes in the dynamics of supported polymer films in comparison to bulk materials involve a complex convolution of effects, such as substrate interactions, roughness and compliance, in addition to film thickness. We consider molecular…