Related papers: Bending stiff charged polymers: the electrostatic …
The strong bending of polymers is poorly understood. We propose a general quantitative framework of polymer bending that includes both the weak and strong bending regimes on the same footing, based on a single general physical principle. As…
We calculate the dependence of the electrostatic persistence length, l_e, of weakly charged flexible polyelectrolyte chains using a self-consistent variational theory. The variation of l_e with \kappa, the inverse Debye screening length, is…
The effective elasticity of highly charged stiff polyelectrolytes is studied in the presence of counterions, with and without added salt. The rigid polymer conformations may become unstable due to an effective attraction induced by…
The electrostatic contribution to twist rigidity of DNA is studied, and it is shown that the Coulomb self-energy of the double-helical sugar-phosphate backbone contributes considerably to twist rigidity of DNA--the electrostatic twist…
The persistence length of macromolecules is one of their basic characteristics, describing their intrinsic local stiffness. However, it is difficult to extract this length from physical properties of the polymers, different recipes may give…
In this paper, we present a theory to efficiently deal with mechanical properties of heterogeneous polymer chain in free space and the central problem is to evaluate the diffusion equation and orientation-orientation correlation function,…
Stacking interactions in single stranded nucleic acids give rise to configurations of an annealed rod-coil multiblock copolymer. Theoretical analysis identifies the resulting signatures for long homopolynucleotides: A non monotonous…
We directly visualize single polymers with persistence lengths ranging from $\ell_p=0.05$ to 16 $\mu$m, dissolved in the nematic phase of rod-like {\it fd} virus. Polymers with sufficiently large persistence length undergo a coil-rod…
The interplay of topological constraints and Coulomb interactions in static and dynamic properties of charged polymers is investigated by numerical simulations and scaling arguments. In the absence of screening, the long-range interaction…
The ubiquitous biomacromolecule DNA has an axial rigidity persistence length of ~50 nm, driven by its elegant double helical structure. While double and multiple helix structures appear widely in nature, only rarely are these found in…
We present a statistical mechanical study of stiff polymers, motivated by experiments on actin filaments and the considerable current interest in polymer networks. We obtain simple, approximate analytical forms for the force-extension…
From extensive Monte Carlo simulations of a Larson model of perfectly periodic heteropolymers (PHP) in water a striking stiffening is observed as the period of the alternating hydrophobic and hydrophilic blocks is shortened. At short period…
Even though the persistence length $L_P$ of double-stranded DNA plays a pivotal role in cell biology and nanotechnologies, its dependence on ionic strength $I$ lacks a consensual description. Using a high-throughput single-molecule…
We study the bending rigidity of highly charged stiff polyelectrolytes, for both a single chain and many chains forming a bundle. A theory is developed to account for the interplay between competitive binding of counterions and charge…
Semiflexible polymers are widely used as a paradigm for understanding structural phases in biomolecules including folding of proteins. Here, we compare bead-spring and bead-stick variants of coarse-grained semiflexible polymer models that…
We present theoretical and numerical studies on stiff, linear polyelectrolytes within the framework of the cell model. We first review analytical results obtained on a mean-field Poisson-Boltzmann level, and then use molecular dynamics…
We study the elastic response of a worm-like polymer chain with reversible kink-like structural defects. This is a generic model for (a) the double-stranded DNA with sharp bends induced by binding of certain proteins, and (b) effects of…
A constitutive model is developed for the mechanical response of elastomers at finite strains. A polymer is treated as a network of linear chains linked by permanent (chemical crosslinks) and temporary (entanglements and van der Waals…
The wormlike chain model of stiff polymers is a nonlinear $\sigma$-model in one spacetime dimension in which the ends are fluctuating freely. This causes important differences with respect to the presently available theory which exists only…
Within the Poisson-Boltzmann (PB) approach electrolytes in contact with planar, spherical, and cylindrical electrodes are analyzed systematically. The dependences of their capacitance $C$ on the surface charge density $\sigma$ and the ionic…