Related papers: Exact Statistics of Helical Wormlike Chains with T…
We study a minimal extension of the worm-like chain to describe polypeptides having alpha-helical secondary structure. In this model presence/absence of secondary structure enters as a scalar variable that controls the local chain bending…
We present a method for solving the Worm Like Chain (WLC) model for twisting semiflexible polymers to any desired accuracy. We show that the WLC free energy is a periodic function of the applied twist with period 4 pi. We develop an analogy…
The statistical mechanics of a ribbon polymer made up of two semiflexible chains is studied using both analytical techniques and simulation. The system is found to have a crossover transition at some finite temperature, from a type of short…
We study the elastic response of a worm-like polymer chain with reversible kink-like structural defects. This is a generic model for (a) the double-stranded DNA with sharp bends induced by binding of certain proteins, and (b) effects of…
We present a theoretical model for understanding the kinetics of a long polymer in solution. A Smoluchowski-like equation has been used to model the problem of polymer looping with a Dirac delta function sink of finite strength. The results…
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…
We present and analyze correlation functions of a main-chain polymer nematic in a continuum worm-like chain description for two types of constraints formalized by the tensorial and vectorial conservation laws, both originating in the…
Exact solutions for the elastic and thermodynamic properties for the wormlike chain model are elaborated in terms of Mathieu functions. The smearing of the classical Euler buckling instability for clamped polymers is analyzed for the…
Based on the wormlike chain model, a coarse-grained description of the nonlinear dynamics of a weakly bending semiflexible polymer is developed. By means of a multiple scale perturbation analysis, a length-scale separation inherent to the…
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…
Force versus extension curves measure entropic elasticity of single polymer chain in force spectroscopy experiments. A Worm-like Chain model is used to describe force extension experiments with an intrinsic chain parameter called…
Chirality in polymeric systems enables a wide range of emergent optical, mechanical, and transport phenomena, yet a unified framework that quantitatively connects molecular-scale geometry to chiral behavior remains lacking. Existing…
Bundles of filamentous polymers are primary structural components of a broad range of cytoskeletal structures, and their mechanical properties play key roles in cellular functions ranging from locomotion to mechanotransduction and…
It is shown that a wormlike chain, i.e., a filament with a fixed contour-length S and a bending elasticity kappa, attached to a frame of length L, can be described--at low resolutions--by the same type of elastic free-energy as a tense…
The mechanical properties of a polymeric network containing both crosslinks and sliplinks (entanglements) are studied using a multi-chain Brownian dynamics simulation. We coarse-grain at the level of chain segments connecting consecutive…
The endpoint distribution and dynamics of semiflexible fibers is studied by numerical simulation. A brief overview is given over the analytical theory of flexible and semiflexible polymers. In particular, a closed expression is given for…
DNA bending on length scales shorter than a persistence length plays an integral role in the translation of genetic information from DNA to cellular function. Quantitative experimental studies of these biological systems have led to a…
Helical molecules change their twist number under the effect of a mechanical load. We study the twist-stretch relation for a set of short DNA molecules modeled by a mesoscopic Hamiltonian. Finite temperature path integral techniques are…
Mechanical properties of nucleic acids play an important role in many biological processes which often involve physical deformations of these molecules. At sufficiently long length scales (say above $\sim 20-30$ base pairs) the mechanics of…
Topological entanglements in polymers are mimicked by sliding rings (slip-links) which enforce pair contacts between monomers. We study the force-extension curve for linear polymers in which slip-links create additional loops of variable…