Related papers: Upsurge of spontaneous knotting in polar diblock a…
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…
We study the dynamics of a knot in a semiflexible polymer confined to a narrow channel of width comparable to the polymers' persistence length. Using a combination of Brownian dynamics simulations and a coarse-grained stochastic model, we…
Macromolecules can gain special properties by adopting knotted conformations, but engineering knotted macromolecules is a challenging task. Here we surprisingly observed that knotting can be very effectively produced in active polymers.…
We report on a computational study of the statics and dynamics of long flexible linear polymers that spontaneously knot and unknot. Specifically, the equilibrium self-entanglement properties, such as the knotting probability, knot length…
Entangled knots form spontaneously in flexible filaments, yet the influence of the surrounding environment on this process is poorly understood. Here we demonstrate that free-moving particles act as kinetic catalysts for spontaneous…
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…
We report that a dielectric polymer chain, constrained at both ends, sharply collapses when exposed to a high electric field. The chain collapse is driven by nonlocal dipolar interactions and anisotropic polarization of monomers, a…
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…
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…
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…
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…
We develop a theoretical description of the topological disentanglement occurring when torus knots reach the ends of a semi-flexible polymer under tension. These include decays into simpler knots and total unknotting. The minimal number of…
Nonequilibrium active polymers provide a minimal framework to investigate biopolymers such as DNA and chromatin under the action of molecular motors. Here we study active ring polymers with controlled topology and show that knot type…
Tangles of string typically become knotted, from macroscopic twine down to long-chain macromolecules such as DNA. Here we demonstrate that knotting also occurs in quantum wavefunctions, where the tangled filaments are vortices (nodal…
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…
Hydrodynamic interactions as modeled by Multi-Particle Collision Dynamics can dramatically influence the dynamics of fully flexible, ring-shaped polymers in ways not known for any other polymer architecture or topology. We show that steady…
The viscous flow of polymer chains in dense melts is dominated by topological constraints whenever the single chain contour length, N, becomes larger than the characteristic scale Ne, defining comprehensively the macroscopic rheological…
Knots on ring polymers tend to be tight. For knots on charged polymers (polyelectrolytes), electrostatic repulsion among the monomers is considered to enhance the persistence length and further localize the knots. However, the effects of…
Common experience tells us that a knot significantly weakens the polymer strand in which it is tied, which in turn leads to more facile chain rupture under tensile loading. Using first-principles molecular dynamics calculations we describe…
The interplay of geometrical and topological entanglement in semiflexible knotted polymer rings confined inside a spherical cavity is investigated using advanced numerical methods. By using stringent and robust algorithms for locating…