Related papers: Dynamics of Self-Threading Ring Polymers in a Gel
The structural arrest of a polymeric suspension might be driven by an increase of the cross--linker concentration, that drives the gel transition, as well as by an increase of the polymer density, that induces a glass transition. These…
This study investigates the probability of threading in star catenanes under good solvent conditions using molecular dynamics simulations, emphasizing the influence of ring rigidity. Threading in these systems arises from the interplay…
We present a novel mechanism for resolving the mechanical rigidity of nanoscopic circular polymers that flow in a complex environment. The emergence of a regime of negative differential mobility induced by topological interactions between…
Motivated by chromosomes enclosed in nucleus and the recently discovered active topological glass, we study a spherically confined melt of long nonconcatenated active polymer rings. Without activity, the rings exhibit the same average…
Reptation theory has been highly successful in explaining the unusual material properties of entangled polymer solutions. It reduces the complex many-body dynamics to a single-polymer description where each polymer is envisaged to be…
We study the motion of dispersed nanoprobes in entangled active-passive polymer mixtures. By comparing the two architectures of linear vs. unconcatenated and unknotted circular polymers, we demonstrate that novel, rich physics emerge. For…
Via large-scale molecular dynamics simulations, we observe the melting of a topological glass of stiff ring polymers by incorporating flexible ring polymers, along an isobaric path. As more flexible ring polymers are introduced, cluster…
Semi-flexible polymers in crowded environments exhibit complex dynamics that play a crucial role in various biological and material design processes. Based on the classic reptation theory, it is generally believed that semiflexible polymers…
Polymers are an effective test-bed for studying topological constraints in condensed matter due to a wide array of synthetically-available chain topologies. When linear and ring polymers are blended together, emergent rheological properties…
Inspired by how the shape deformations in active organisms help them to migrate through disordered porous environments, we simulate active ring polymers in two-dimensional random porous media. Flexible and inextensible active ring polymers…
The conformational statistics of ring polymers in melts or dense solutions is strongly affected by their quenched microscopic topological state. The effect is particularly strong for non-concatenated unknotted rings, which are known to…
We use computer simulations to study the relaxation dynamics of a model for oil-in-water microemulsion droplets linked with telechelic polymers. This system exhibits both gel and glass phases and we show that the competition between these…
Mesh-like structures, such as mucus gel or cytoskeleton networks, are ubiquitous in biological systems. These intricate structures are composed of cross-linked, semi-flexible bio-filaments, crucial to numerous biological processes. In many…
Unconcatenated, unknotted polymer rings in the melt are subject to strong interactions with neighboring chains due to the presence of topological constraints. We study this by computer simulation using the bond-fluctuation algorithm for…
Polydispersity is inevitable in industrially produced polymers. Established theories of polymer dynamics and rheology, however, were mostly built on monodisperse linear polymers. Dynamics of polydisperse polymers is yet to be fully explored…
Soft-granular media, such as dense emulsions, foams or tissues, exhibit either fluid- or solid-like properties depending on the applied external stresses. Whereas bulk rheology of such materials has been thoroughly investigated, the…
In the present work, the cyclic polymer chains (rings) in structurally disordered environment (e.g. in the cross-linked polymer gel) are studied exploiting the model of closed self-avoiding walks (SAWs) trajectories on $d=3$-dimensional…
The transport of polymers with folded configurations across membrane pores is investigated theoretically by analyzing simple discrete stochastic models. The translocation dynamics is viewed as a sequence of two events: motion of the folded…
Letting free polymers diffuse from solution into a crosslinked polymer gel is often a crucial processing step in the synthesis of multiphase polymer-based gels, e.g., core-shell microgels. Here we use coarse-grained molecular dynamics…
Ring, or cyclic, polymers have unique properties compared to linear polymers, due to their topologically closed structure that has no beginning or end. Experimental measurements on molecular ring polymers are challenging due to their…