Related papers: Ring closure in actin polymers
Cross-linked polymer networks with orientational order constitute a wide class of soft materials and are relevant to biological systems (e.g., F-actin bundles). We analytically study the nonlinear force-extension relation of an array of…
We consider a model of an extensible semiflexible filament moving in two dimensions on a motility assay of motor proteins represented explicitly as active harmonic linkers. Their heads bind stochastically to polymer segments within a…
Measuring bipartite fluctuations of a conserved charge, such as the particle number, is a powerful approach to understanding quantum systems. When the measured region has sharp corners, the bipartite fluctuation receives an additional…
We use Monte Carlo simulations to study polymer melts consisting of fully flexible and moderately stiff chains in the bond fluctuation model at a volume fraction $0.5$. In order to reduce the local density fluctuations, we test a…
By means of multicanonical computer simulations, we investigate thermodynamic properties of the aggregation of interacting semiflexible polymers. We analyze a mesoscopic bead-stick model, where nonbonded monomers interact via Lennard-Jones…
Employing Monte Carlo simulations of semiflexible polymer rings in weak spherical confinement a conformational transition to figure eight shaped, writhed configurations is discovered and quantified.
Despite their considerable practical and biological applications, the link between molecular properties, assembly conditions and self-organized structure in confined polymer solutions remains elusive. Here, we explore the lyotropic nematic…
We study the statistical mechanics of grafted polymers of arbitrary stiffness in a two-dimensional embedding space with Monte Carlo simulations. The probability distribution function of the free end is found to be highly anisotropic and…
Based on an estimate of the knot entropy of a worm-like chain we predict that the interplay of bending energy and confinement entropy will result in a compact metastable configuration of the knot that will diffuse, without spreading, along…
We study the dynamical response of a single semiflexible polymer chain based on the theory developed by Hallatschek et al. for the wormlike-chain model. The linear viscoelastic response under oscillatory forces acting at the two chain ends…
The formation of chain-folded structures from the melt is observed in molecular dynamics simulations resembling the lamellae of polymer crystals. Crystallization and subsequent melting temperatures are related linearly to the inverse…
We investigate the properties of a system of semi-diluted polymers in the presence of charged groups and counter-ions, by means of self-consistent field theory. We study a system of polyelectrolyte chains grafted to a similarly, as well as…
The effect of confinement in the segmental relaxation of polymers is considered. On the basis of a thermodynamic model we discuss the emerging relevance of the fast degrees of freedom in stimulating the much slower segmental relaxation, 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 consider the motion of semiflexible polymers in double-well potentials. We calculate shape, energy, and effective diffusion constant of kink excitations, and in particular their dependence on the bending rigidity of the semiflexible…
We investigate the effect of knot type on the properties of a ring polymer confined to a slit. For relatively wide slits, the more complex the knot, the more the force exerted by the polymer on the walls is decreased compared to an…
Helically coiled filaments are a frequent motif in nature. In situations commonly encountered in experiments coiled helices are squeezed flat onto two dimensional surfaces. Under such 2-D confinement helices form "squeelices" - peculiar…
We describe fluctuating two-dimensional metallic antiferromagnets by transforming to a rotating reference frame in which the electron spin polarization is measured by its projections along the local antiferromagnetic order. This leads to a…
In this paper, we construct an effective model for the dynamics of an excluded-volume chain under confinement, by extending the formalism of Rouse modes. We make specific predictions about the behavior of the modes for a single polymer…
Actin is a filamentary protein which has many remarkable properties making it an ideal system for the study of the dynamics and mechanics of semi-flexible polymer solutions and gels; actin has a persistence length of over 10 microns and can…