Related papers: A statistical mechanical study of mechanical dual …
We investigate the statistical mechanics of a torsionally constrained polymer. The polymer is modeled as a fluctuating rod with bend stiffness A kT and twist stiffness C kT. In such a model, thermal bend fluctuations couple geometrically to…
We explore dynamic structural superlubricity for the case of a relatively large contact area, where the friction force is proportional to the area (exceeding $\sim 100\,nm^2$) experimentally, numerically, and theoretically. We use a setup…
Surface effects are generally prevailing in confined colloidal systems. Here we report on dispersed nanoparticles close to a fluid membrane. Exact results regarding the static organization are derived for a dilute solution of non-adhesive…
Using molecular dynamics simulation we examine dynamics in sheared polycrystal states in a binary mixture containing 10% larger particles in two dimensions. We find large stress fluctuations arising from sliding motions of the particles at…
The friction and adhesion between elastic bodies are strongly influenced by the roughness of the surfaces in contact. Here we develop a multiscale molecular dynamics approach to contact mechanics, which can be used also when the surfaces…
The long time dynamics of large particles trapped in two inhomogeneous turbulent shear flows is studied experimentally. Both flows present a common feature, a shear region that separates two colliding circulations, but with different…
We investigate the thermodynamics and kinetics of DNA hairpins that fold/unfold under the action of applied mechanical force. We introduce the concept of the molecular free energy landscape and derive simplified expressions for the force…
A methodology for the statistical mechanical analysis of polymeric chains under tension introduced previously is extended to include torque. The response of individual bonds between monomers or of entire groups of monomers to a combination…
Mechanical stretching of secondary structures is studied through molecular dynamics simulations of a Go-like model. Force vs. displacement curves are studied as a function of the stiffness and velocity of the pulling device. The succession…
We study a model describing the force-extension curves of modular proteins, nucleic acids, and other biomolecules made out of several single units or modules. At a mesoscopic level of description, the configuration of the system is given by…
We propose a simple mathematical model to describe the mechanical relaxation of cells within a curved epithelial tissue layer represented by an arbitrary curve in two-dimensional space. This model generalises previous one-dimensional models…
We use molecular dynamics to study the vibrations of a thermally fluctuating two-dimensional elastic membrane clamped at both ends. We directly extract the eigenmodes from resonant peaks in the frequency domain of the time-dependent height…
We show that in experimental atomic force microscopy studies of the lifetime distribution of mechanically stressed folded proteins the effects of externally applied fluctuations can not be distinguished from those of internally present…
We study experimentally the fluctuations of the injected and dissipated energy in a system of a colloidal particle trapped in a double well potential periodically modulated by an external perturbation. The work done by the external force…
The dynamics of two Brownian particles trapped by two neighboring harmonic potentials in a linear shear flow is investigated. The positional correlation functions in this system are calculated analytically and analyzed as a function of the…
The growth rate of material interfaces is an important proxy for mixing and reaction rates in fluid dynamics, and can also be used to identify regions of coherence. Estimating such growth rates can be difficult, since they depend on…
Low-frequency molecular fluctuations in the translational nonequilibrium zone of one-dimensional strong shock waves are characterised for the first time in a kinetic collisional framework in the Mach number range $2\le M\le 10$. Our…
Nucleic acids have been regarded as stiff polymers with long-range flexibility and generally modeled using elastic rod models of polymer physics. Notwithstanding, investigations carried out over the past few years on single fragments of…
We use confocal microscopy and time-resolved light scattering to investigate plasticity in a col- loidal polycrystal, following the evolution of the network of grain boundaries as the sample is submitted to thousands of shear deformation…
We present a theoretical investigation of thermal fluctuation statistics in a molecular motor. Energy transfer in the motor is described using a multidimensional discrete master equation with nearest-neighbor hopping. In this theory, energy…