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Polymer chains undergoing a continuous adsorption-desorption transition are studied through extensive computer simulations. A three-dimensional self-avoiding walk lattice model of a polymer chain grafted onto a surface has been treated for…
We present the results of analytic calculations and numerical simulations of the behaviour of a new class of chain molecules which we call thick polymers. The concept of the thickness of such a polymer, viewed as a tube, is encapsulated by…
Bead spring models for polymers in solution are nonlinear if either the finite extensibility of the polymer, excluded volume effects or hydrodynamic interactions between polymer segments are taken into account. For such models we use a…
Helicity of free massless Dirac fermions is a conserved, Lorentz-invariant quantity at the level of the classical equations of motion. For a generic ensemble consisting of particles and antiparticles, the helical and chiral charges are…
The biopolymers actin and microtubules are often in an ongoing assembling/disassembling state far from thermal equilibrium. Above a critical density this leads to spatially periodic patterns, as shown by a scaling argument and in terms of a…
The flexibility of short DNA chains is investigated via computation of the average correlation function between dimers which defines the persistence length. Path integration techniques have been applied to confine the phase space available…
Using molecular dynamics simulations we examine the dynamics of a family of model polymers with varying chain length and torsional potential barriers. We focus on features of the dynamics of polymers that are seen experimentally but absent…
The influence of monomer-monomer interactions on the scaling exponents and shape characteristics of a single polymer chain in a selective solvent is investigated using Langevin dynamics simulations. By systematically increasing the…
This paper deals with a concept for a reconfigurable structure bio-inspired by the cell wall architecture of euglenids, a family of unicellular protists, and based on the relative sliding of adjacent strips. Uniform sliding turns a cylinder…
Inspired by the complex influence of the globular crosslinking proteins on the formation of biofilament bundles in living organisms, we study and analyze a theoretical model for the structure and thermodynamics of bundles of helical…
Effective and fast convergence toward an equilibrium state for long-chain polymer melts is realized by a hybrid method coupling molecular dynamics and the elastic continuum. The required simulation time to achieve the equilibrium state is…
Semiflexible polymers in concentrated lyotropic solution are studied within a bead-spring model by molecular dynamics simulations, focusing on the emergence of a smectic A phase and its properties. We systematically vary the density of the…
In this work, we present a simple and efficient generator of polymeric linear chains, based on a random self-avoiding walk process. The chains are generated using a discrete process of growth, in cubic networks and in a finite time, without…
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…
We consider a general discrete model for heterogeneous semiflexible polymer chains. Both the thermal noise and the inhomogeneous character of the chain (the disorder) are modeled in terms of random rotations. We focus on the quenched…
We propose a model for chiral polymerisation and investigate its symmetric and asymmetric solutions. The model has a source species which decays into left- and right-handed types of monomer, each of which can polymerise to form homochiral…
The dynamic structure factor of semiflexible polymers in solution is derived from the wormlike chain model. Special attention is paid to the rigid constraint of an inextensible contour and to the hydrodynamic interactions. For the cases of…
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…
Kinetics of conformational change of a semiflexible polymer under mechanical external field were investigated with Langevin dynamics simulations. It is found that a semiflexible polymer exhibits large hysteresis in mechanical…
A series of asymmetric dimers with an odd number of atoms in the spacer were found to form different types of twisted structures despite being achiral. The formation of a variety of helical structures is accompanied by a gradual freezing of…