Related papers: Ring polymers with topological constraints
We perform computer simulations of mechanically linked (poly[2]catenanes, PC) and chemically bonded (bonded rings, BR) pairs of self-avoiding ring polymers in steady shear. We find that BR's develop a novel motif, termed gradient tumbling,…
Motivated by recent advances in single molecule manipulation techniques that enabled several groups to tie knots in individual polymer strands and to monitor their dynamics, we have used computer simulations to study "friction knots"…
A coarse-grained computational model is used to investigate how the bending rigidity of a polymer under tension affects the formation of a trefoil knot. Thermodynamic integration techniques are applied to demonstrate that the free-energy…
The role of the topology and its relation with the geometry of biopolymers under different physical conditions is a nontrivial and interesting problem. Aiming at understanding this issue for a related simpler system, we use Monte Carlo…
Extensive molecular simulations are applied to characterize the equilibrium dynamics, entanglement topology, and nonlinear extensional rheology of symmetric ring-linear polymer blends with systematically varied ring fraction $\phi_R$.…
We consider the statistical mechanics of a system of topologically linked polymers, such as for instance a dense solution of polymer rings. If the possible topological states of the system are distinguished using the Gauss linking number as…
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 study the dynamics of a single chain polymer confined to a two dimensional cell. We introduce a kinetically constrained lattice gas model that preserves the connectivity of the chain, and we use this kinetically constrained model to…
The tube model is a central concept in polymer physics, and allows to reduce the complex many-filament problem of an entangled polymer solution to a single filament description. We investigate the probability distribution function of…
Topological constraints can affect both equilibrium and dynamic properties of polymer systems, and can play a role in the organization of chromosomes. Despite many theoretical studies, the effects of topological constraints on the…
Hybrid molecular dynamics/Monte Carlo simulations used to study melts of unentangled, thermoreversibly associating supramolecular polymers. In this first of a series of papers, we describe and validate a model that is effective in…
One of the most challenging problems in polymer physics is providing a theoretical description for the behaviour of rings in dense solutions and melts. Although it is nowadays well established that the overall size of a ring in these…
The coupled dynamics of entangled polymers which span a broad time and length scales govern the unique viscoelastic properties of polymers. To follow chain mobility by numerical simulations from the intermediate Rouse and reptation regimes…
Scaling arguments are used to analyze the size of topologically constrained closed ring polymer with excluded volume. It is found that there exists a finite range of polymer thickness (excluded volume) in which self-avoidance is unimportant…
We study structural properties of a ring polymeric melt confined in a film in comparison to a linear counterpart using molecular dynamics simulations. Local structure orderings of ring and linear polymers in the vicinity of the surface are…
We investigate experimentally the distribution of configurations of a ring with an elementary topological constraint, a ``figure-8'' twist. Using vibrated granular chains, which permit controlled preparation and direct observation of such a…
We introduce a two-dimensional lattice model for the description of knotted polymer rings. A polymer configuration is modeled by a closed polygon drawn on the square diagonal lattice, with possible crossings describing pairs of strands of…
Knots, links and entangled filaments appear in many physical systems of interest in biology and engineering. Classifying knots and measuring entanglement is of interest both for advancing knot theory, as well as for analyzing large data…
In this paper, we employ Molecular Dynamics computer simulations to study and compare the statics and dynamics of linear and circular (ring) polymer chains in entangled solutions of different densities. While we confirm that linear chain…
The investigation of freezing transitions of single polymers is computationally demanding, since surface effects dominate the nucleation process. In recent studies we have systematically shown that the freezing properties of flexible,…