Related papers: Ring polymers in two-dimensional melts double-fold…
Extensive molecular simulations are applied to characterize the equilibrium dynamics, entanglement topology, and nonlinear extensional rheology of symmetric ring-linear polymer blends with systematically varied ring fraction $\phi_R$.…
The polymerization dynamics of double-stranded polymers, such as actin filaments, is investigated theoretically using simple chemical kinetic models that explicitly take into account some microscopic details of the polymer structure and the…
By applying local primitive path and Rouse modes analysis we study the chains conformations, local dynamics and viscosity of a model polymer melt in a polymer-wall interface. We establish that the presence of a repulsive wall leads to…
The statistical mechanics of polymer loops entangled in the two-dimensional array of randomly distributed obstacles of infinite length is discussed. The area of the loop projected to the plane perpendicular to the obstacles is used as a…
We propose a simple mean-field theory for the structure of ring polymer melts. By combining the notion of topological volume fraction and a classical van der Waals theory of fluids, we take into account many body effects of topological…
Primitive path analyses of entanglements are performed over a wide range of chain lengths for both bead spring and atomistic polyethylene polymer melts. Estimators for the entanglement length N_e which operate on results for a single chain…
We present a detailed account of a recently proposed phenomenological theory for noncatenated ring polymer melts (Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 167802 (2011)). A basic assumption lies in the implementation of the noncatenation constraint via the…
Stochastic simulations are used to characterize the knotting distributions of random ring polymers confined in spheres of various radii. The approach is based on the use of multiple Markov chains and reweighting techniques, combined with…
We perform large scale three-dimensional molecular dynamics simulations of unlinked and unknotted ring polymers diffusing through a background gel, here a three-dimensional cubic lattice. Taking advantage of this architecture, we propose a…
Ring polymers are prevalent in natural and engineered systems, including circular bacterial DNA, crown ethers for cation chelation, and mechanical nanoswitches. The morphology and dynamics of ring polymers are governed by the chemistry and…
Self-avoiding polymers in two-dimensional ($d=2$) melts are known to adopt compact configurations of typical size $R(N) \sim N^{1/d}$ with $N$ being the chain length. Using molecular dynamics simulations we show that the irregular shapes of…
Topologically constrained genome-like polymers often double-fold into tree-like configurations. Here we calculate the exact number of tightly double-folded configurations available to a ring polymer in ideal conditions. For this purpose, we…
Confinement is a versatile and well-established tool to study the properties of polymers either to understand biological processes or to develop new nano-biomaterials. We investigate the conformations of a semiflexible polymer ring in weak…
Motivated by renewed interest in the physics of branched polymers, we present here a complete characterization of the connectivity and spatial properties of $2$ and $3$-dimensional single-chain conformations of randomly branching polymers…
We study of the dynamics of ring polymers confined to diffuse in a background gel at low concentrations. We do this in order to probe the inter-play between topology and dynamics in ring polymers. We develop an algorithm that takes into…
We use complete enumeration and Monte Carlo techniques to study two-dimensional self-avoiding polymer chains with quenched ``charges'' $\pm 1$. The interaction of charges at neighboring lattice sites is described by $q_i q_j$. We find that…
We study the statistical mechanics of double-stranded semi-flexible polymers using both analytical techniques and simulation. We find a transition at some finite temperature, from a type of short range order to a fundamentally different…
Molecular dynamics simulation of a generic polymer model is applied to study melts of polymers with different types of intrinsic stiffness. Important static observables of the single chain such as gyration radius or persistence length are…
Motivated by recent DNA-pulling experiments, we revisit the Poland-Scheraga model of melting a double-stranded polymer. We include distinct bending rigidities for both the double-stranded segments, and the single-stranded segments forming a…
We present structural properties of two-dimensional polymers as far as they can be described by percolation theory. The percolation threshold, critical exponents and fractal dimensions of clusters are determined by computer simulation and…