Related papers: Polymer-mediated entropic forces between scale-fre…
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…
Using canonical Monte Carlo simulations, we introduce a new numerical procedure for comparing the entropic exponents of polymers with different constraints and/or topologies. Setting up competitions between polymer segments which can…
By tracking small particles in the bulk of an intensely turbulent flow, we show that even a very small concentration of long-chain polymers disrupts the usual turbulent energy cascade. The polymers affect scales much larger than their…
Exact results for the scaling properties of compact polymers on the square lattice are obtained from an effective field theory. The entropic exponent \gamma=117/112 is calculated, and a line of fixed points associated with interacting…
The entropic pressure in the vicinity of a two dimensional square lattice polygon is examined as a model of the entropic pressure near a planar ring polymer. The scaling of the pressure as a function of distance from the polygon and length…
A statistical mechanical description of flexible and semi-flexible polymer chains in a poor solvent is developed in the constant force and constant distance ensembles. We predict the existence of many intermediate states at low temperatures…
A polymer network fractures by breaking covalent bonds, but the experimentally measured strength of the polymer network is orders of magnitude lower than the strength of covalent bonds. We investigate the effect of statistical variation of…
The molecular dynamics simulations were used to obtain the radius of gyration of real ring polymer chains with different topological structures consisting of 360 monomers. We focus on the entropic force which is exerted by a dilute solution…
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…
We present results from extensive molecular dynamics simulations of collapse transitions of hydrophobic polymers in explicit water focused on understanding effects of lengthscale of the hydrophobic surface and of attractive interactions on…
Understanding and computing the entropic forces exerted by polymer chains under confinement is important for many reasons, from research to applications. However, extracting properties related to the free energy, such as the force (or…
Taking into account the nonequivalence of fixed-force and fixed-length ensembles in the weak-force regime, equations of state are derived that describe the equilibrium extension or compression of an ideal Gaussian polymer chain in response…
When two macromolecules come very near in a fluid, the surrounding molecules, having finite volume, are less likely to get in between. This leads to a pressure difference manifesting as an entropic attraction, called depletion force. Here…
We study the entropic force due to a fluctuating semiflexible polymer that is grafted from one end and confined by a rigid and rough wall from the other end. We show how roughness of the wall modifies the entropic force. In addition to the…
It has been shown that under high cylindrical confinement, two ring polymers with excluded volume interactions between monomers, segregate to two halves of the cylinder to maximize their entropy. In contrast, two ring polymers remain mixed…
The behavior of polyelectrolytes between charged surfaces immersed in semi-dilute solutions is investigated theoretically. A continuum mean field approach is used for calculating numerically concentration profiles between two electrodes…
We study the thermodynamic properties of a semiflexible polymer confined inside strips of widths L<=9 defined on a square lattice. The polymer is modeled as a self-avoiding walk and a short range interaction between the monomers and the…
Using molecular dynamic simulation, we study the stretching of an adsorbed homopolymer in a poor solvent with one end held at a distance $z_e$ from the substrate. We measure the vertical force $f$ on the end of the chain as a function of…
Polymer chains decorated with a fraction of monomers capable of forming reversible bonds form transient polymer networks that are important in soft and biological systems. If chains are flexible and the attractive monomers are all of the…
We show that when a self-avoiding polymer chain is pulled off a sticky surface by force applied to the end segment, it undergoes a first-order thermodynamic phase transition albeit without phase coexistence. This unusual feature is…