Related papers: Ring Polymers: Threadings, Knot Electrophoresis an…
Polymer entanglements lead to complicated topological constraints and interactions between neighbouring chains in a dense solution or melt. Entanglements can be treated in a mean field approach, within the famous reptation model, since they…
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,…
Large scale molecular dynamics simulations on graphic processing units (GPUs) are employed to study the scaling behavior of ring polymers with various topological constraints in melts. Typical sizes of rings containing $3_1$, $5_1$ knots…
Chromosomes are crumpled polymer chains further folded into a sequence of stochastic loops via loop extrusion. While extrusion has been verified experimentally, the particular means by which the extruding complexes bind DNA polymer remains…
We present Monte Carlo computer simulations for melts of semiflexible randomly knotted and randomly concatenated ring polymers on the fcc lattice and in slit confinement. Through systematic variation of the slit width at fixed melt density,…
The topological effects on the thermal properties of several knot configurations are investigated using Monte Carlo simulations. In order to check if the topology of the knots is preserved during the thermal fluctuations we propose a method…
Simulations are used to examine the microscopic origins of strain hardening in polymer glasses. While traditional entropic network models can be fit to the total stress, their underlying assumptions are inconsistent with simulation results.…
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 $\phi_R$.…
Polymers in a melt may be subject to topological constraints, as in the example of unlinked polymer rings. How to do statistical mechanics in the presence of such constraints remains a fundamental open problem. We study the effect of…
Ring polymers are an intriguing class of polymers with unique physical properties, and understanding their behavior is important for developing accurate theoretical models. In this study, we investigate the effect of chain stiffness and…
Using a theoretical model we show that ideal ring polymers are stronger depletants than ideal linear polymers of equal radii of gyration, but not of equal hydrodynamic radii. The difference in the depletion-induced force profile is largely…
In the presented work we study, by means of numerical simulations, the behaviour of a suspension of active ring polymers in the bulk and under lateral confinement. When changing the separation between the confining planes and the polymers'…
Many glass-forming fluids exhibit a remarkable thermodynamic scaling in which dynamic properties, such as the viscosity, the relaxation time, and the diffusion constant, can be described under different thermodynamic conditions in terms of…
Many experiments have been done to determine the relative strength of different knots, and these show that the break in a knotted rope almost invariably occurs at a point just outside the `entrance' to the knot. The influence of knots on…
Gel electrophoresis is a powerful experimental method to probe the topology of DNA and other biopolymers. While there is a large body of experimental work which allows us to accurately separate different topoisomers of a molecule, a full…
The statistical theory of polymers tethered around the inner surface of a cylindrical channel has traditionally employed the assumption that the equilibrium density of the polymers is independent of the azimuthal coordinate. However,…
We study how confinement affects topology and conformations in polymer films of varying thickness $h$. The knotting probability exhibits a maximum at intermediate thicknesses near the bulk radius of gyration $h \approx R_\mathrm{g,bulk}$,…
In recent times some interesting field theoretical descriptions of the statistical mechanics of entangling polymers have been proposed by various authors. In these approaches, a single test polymer fluctuating in a background of static…
An extensive study of single block copolymer knots containing two kinds of monomers $A$ and $B$ is presented. The knots are in a solution and their monomers are subjected to short range interactions that can be attractive or repulsive. In…
Vitrimers are polymer networks that can undergo bond exchange reactions. They dynamically rearrange their structures while maintaining their overall integrity, thus resulting in unique properties such as self-healing, reprocessability,…