Related papers: Actively induced supercoiling can slow down plasmi…
We theoretically study the conformational and dynamical properties of semiflexible active polar ring polymers under linear shear flow. A ring is described as a continuous Gaussian polymer with a tangential active force of a constant density…
Reptation theory has been highly successful in explaining the unusual material properties of entangled polymer solutions. It reduces the complex many-body dynamics to a single-polymer description where each polymer is envisaged to be…
Helices are the quintessential geometric motif of the microscale, from alpha-helices in proteins to double helices in DNA. Assembly of the helical geometry of biopolymers is a foundational step in a hierarchy of structure that eventually…
The advent of solid state nanodevices allows for interrogating the physico-chemical properties of a polyelectrolyte chain by electrophoretically driving it through a nanopore. Salient dynamical aspects of the translocation process have been…
Polymer composites are ideal candidates for next generation biomimetic soft materials because of their exquisite bottom-up designability. However, the richness of behaviours comes at a price: the need for precise and extensive…
By means of Langevin dynamics simulations, we investigate the gel formation of randomly functionalized polymers in solution, with the ability to form both intra- and intermolecular reversible bonds. Under highly dilute conditions, these…
Polymer-related materials exhibit rich glassy behaviors at different length scales due to their various molecular structures and topological constraints. Recent studies have identified transient interpenetration of the long-chain rings…
Silk is a semi-dilute solution of randomly coiled associating polypeptide chains that crystallise following the stretch-induced disruption, in the strong extensional flow of extrusion, of the solvation shell around their amino acids. We…
We report on quantitative comparisons between simulation results of a bead-spring model and mode-coupling theory calculations for the structural and conformational dynamics of a supercooled, unentangled polymer melt. We find…
We investigate theoretically the effect of polymer tension on the collective behavior of reversibly binding cross-links. For this purpose, we employ a model of two weakly bending wormlike chains aligned in parallel by a tensile force, with…
Active dynamic processes of cells are largely driven by the cytoskeleton, a complex and adaptable semiflexible polymer network, motorized by mechanoenzymes. Small dimensions, confined geome- tries and hierarchical structures make it…
We explore the glassy dynamics of soft colloids using microgels and charged particles interacting by steric and screened Coulomb interactions, respectively. In the supercooled regime, the structural relaxation time $\tau_\alpha$ of both…
There is a long-standing experimental observation that the melting of topologically constrained DNA, such as circular-closed plasmids, is less abrupt than that of linear molecules. This finding points to an intriguing role of topology in…
Inspired by how the shape deformations in active organisms help them to migrate through disordered porous environments, we simulate active ring polymers in two-dimensional random porous media. Flexible and inextensible active ring polymers…
The dynamics of particles interacting by key-lock binding of attached biomolecules are studied theoretically. Experimental realizations of such systems include colloids grafted with complementary single-stranded DNA (ssDNA), and particles…
Ring polymers are characterized by topology-specific entanglements called threadings. In the limit of large rings, it is conjectured that a "topological glass" should emerge due to the proliferation of threadings. In this study, we used…
Chromatin looping is a major epigenetic regulatory mechanism in higher eukaryotes. Besides its role in transcriptional regulation, chromatin loops have been proposed to play a pivotal role in the segregation of entire chromosomes. The…
It is well stablished that confinement of supercooled liquids in nano-pores induces various effects as a strong modification of the dynamics and a layering of the local structure. In this work we raise the issue as how these confinement…
A paradigm for internally driven matter is the active nematic liquid crystal, whereby the equations of a conventional nematic are supplemented by a minimal active stress that violates time reversal symmetry. In practice, active fluids may…
This study investigates the probability of threading in star catenanes under good solvent conditions using molecular dynamics simulations, emphasizing the influence of ring rigidity. Threading in these systems arises from the interplay…