Related papers: Semiflexible polymers under external fields confin…
We present an extremely simplified model of multiple-domains polymer stretching in an atomic force microscopy experiment. We portray each module as a binary set of contacts and decompose the system energy into a harmonic term (the…
The conformations and dynamics of semiflexible filaments subject to a homogeneous external (gravitational) field, e.g., in a centrifuge, are studied numerically and analytically. The competition between hydrodynamic drag and bending…
We study the two-dimensional (2D) shear flow of amorphous solids within variants of an elastoplastic model, paying particular attention to spatial correlations and time fluctuations of, e.g., local stresses. The model is based on the local…
Semiflexible macromolecules in dilute solution under very good solvent conditions are modeled by self-avoiding walks on the simple cubic lattice ($d=3$ dimensions) and square lattice ($d=2$ dimensions), varying chain stiffness by an energy…
A quantitative theory of the buckling of a worm like chain based on a semi-classical approximation of the partition function is presented. The contribution of thermal fluctuations to the force-extension relation that allows to go beyond the…
A theoretical model is developed for predicting dynamic polymer depletion effects under the influence of fluid flow. The results are established by combining the two-fluid model and the self-consistent field theory. We consider a uniform…
We study the viscoelasticity of surface polymer monolayers by measuring the dynamics of thermal concentration fluctuations with surface light scattering. For various systems of proteins and synthetic polymers we find a semi-dilute regime in…
We study the translocation of a semiflexible polymer through a conical channel with attractive surface interactions and a driving force which varies spatially inside the channel. Using the results of the translocation dynamics of a flexible…
Polymer translocation has long been a topic of interest in the field of biological physics given its relevance in both biological (protein and DNA/RNA translocation through nuclear and cell membranes) and technological processes (nanopore…
We systematically explore the self-assembly of semi-flexible polymers in deformable spherical confinement across a wide regime of chain stiffness, contour lengths and packing fractions by means of coarse-grained molecular dynamics…
We present a theory for the elasticity of cross-linked stiff polymer networks. Stiff polymers, unlike their flexible counterparts, are highly anisotropic elastic objects. Similar to mechanical beams stiff polymers easily deform in bending,…
The reorientation dynamics of local tangent vectors of chains in isotropic amorphous melts containing semiflexible model polymers was studied by molecular dynamics simulations. The reorientation is strongly influenced both by the local…
Nano-scale confinement of polymer in cone-shaped geometries occurs in many experimental situations. A flexible polymer confined in a cone-shaped nano-channel is studied theoretically and using molecular dynamics simulations. Distribution of…
Chemically-responsive polymers are macromolecules that respond to local variations of the chemical composition of the solution by changing their conformation, with notable examples including polyelectrolytes, proteins and DNA. The polymer…
We have developed a realistic simulation of 2D dry foams under quasi-static shear. After a short transient, a shear-banding instability is observed. These results are compared with measurements obtained on real 2D (confined) foams. The…
Both animal and plant tissue exhibit a nonlinear rheological phenomenon known as compression stiffening, or an increase in moduli with increasing uniaxial compressive strain. Does such a phenomenon exist in single cells, which are the…
The dynamics of polymers in a random smooth flow is investigated in the framework of the Hookean dumbbell model. The analytical expression of the time-dependent probability density function of polymer elongation is derived explicitly for a…
The interaction of flexible polymers with fluid flows leads to a number of intriguing phenomena observed in laboratory experiments, namely drag reduction, elastic turbulence and heat transport modification in natural convection, and is one…
We investigate spatio-temporal structures in sheared polymer systems by solving a time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau model in two dimensions. (i) In polymer solutions above the coexistence curve, crossover from linear to nonlinear regimes…
The entropic force exerted by the Brownian fluctuations of a grafted semiflexible polymer upon a rigid smooth wall are calculated both analytically and by Monte Carlo simulations. Such forces are thought to play an important role for…