Related papers: Polyelectrolyte Knot Delocalization Induced by Cou…
A simple model is presented for the appearance of attraction between two like charged polyions inside a polyelectrolyte solution. The polyions are modeled as rigid cylinders in a continuum dielectric solvent. The strong electrostatic…
Motivated by recent advances in single molecule manipulation techniques that enabled several groups to tie knots in individual polymer strands and to monitor their dynamics, we have used computer simulations to study "friction knots"…
We give two different, statistically consistent definitions of the length l of a prime knot tied into a polymer ring. In the good solvent regime the polymer is modelled by a self avoiding polygon of N steps on cubic lattice and l is the…
Strong coupling phenomena, such as the like charged macroions attraction, opposite charged macroions repulsion, charge renormalization or charge inversion, are known to be mediated by multivalent counterions. Most theories treat the…
We present a computer simulation study of the compact self-avoiding loops as regards their length and topological state. We use a Hamiltonian closed path on the cubic-shaped segment of a 3D cubic lattice as a model of a compact polymer. The…
We use numerical simulations to study tangentially active flexible ring polymers with different knot topologies. Simple, unknotted active rings display a transition from an extended phase to a collapsed one upon increasing the degree of…
An analysis of extensive simulations of interacting self-avoiding polygons on cubic lattice shows that the frequencies of different knots realized in a random, collapsed polymer ring decrease as a negative power of the ranking order, and…
We perform extensive molecular dynamics simulations of a highly charged flexible polyelectrolyte (PE) chain in a poor solvent for the case when the chain is in a collapsed state and the electrostatic interactions, characterized by the…
The statistical mechanics of a long knotted collapsed polymer is determined by a free-energy with a knot-dependent subleading term, which is linked to the length of the shortest polymer that can hold such knot. The only other parameter…
Using molecular dynamics simulations we study the behavior of a dilute solution of strongly charged polyelectrolytes in poor solvents, where we take counterions explicitly into account. We focus on the chain conformational properties under…
We adapt the Edwards-Muthukumar theoretical framework for a single polymer chain to investigate the interplay between proton binding and counterion condensation for poly-acids. We find that changes to pH enable non-monotonic transitions…
We explore the mechanical response of a single polyelectrolyte chain under tension in good and poor solvents using a combination of simulation and theory. In poor solvents, where the equilibrium state of the chain is a collapsed globule, we…
We study the properties of polyelectrolyte chains under different solvent conditions, using a variational technique. The free energy and the conformational properties of a polyelectrolyte chain are studied minimizing the free energy $F_N$,…
Constant temperature molecular dynamics simulations were used to study solutions of flexible polyelectrolyte chains at nonzero concentrations with explicit counterions and unscreened coulombic interactions. Counterion condensation, measured…
The transport of polyelectrolytes confined by oppositely charged surfaces and driven by a constant electric field is of interest in studies of DNA separation according to size. Using molecular dynamics simulations that include surface…
Nonlinear elastic responses of short and stiff polyelectrolytes are investigated by dynamic simulations on a single molecule level. When a polyelectrolyte condensate undergoes a mechanical unfolding, two types of force-extension curves,…
The persistence length of a single, intrinsically rigid polyelectrolyte chain, above the Manning condensation threshold is investigated theoretically in presence of added salt. Using a loop expansion method, the partition function is…
We study the attractive interactions between rod-like charged polymers in solution that appear in the presence of multi-valence counterions. The counterions condensed to the rods exhibit both a strong transversal polarization and a…
A coarse-grained computational model is used to investigate how the bending rigidity of a polymer under tension affects the formation of a trefoil knot. Thermodynamic integration techniques are applied to demonstrate that the free-energy…
We use computer simulations to compare the dynamical behaviour of torus and even-twist knots in polymers under tension. The knots diffuse through a mechanism similar to reptation. Their friction coefficients grow linearly with average knot…