Related papers: Active polymers translocate faster in confinement
The transport of deformable particles through porous media underlies a wealth of applications ranging from filtration to oil recovery to the transport and spreading of biological agents. Using direct numerical simulations, we analyze the…
We consider the flow-driven translocation of single polymer chains through nanochannels. Using analytical calculations based on the de Gennes blob model and mesoscopic numerical simulations, we estimate the threshold flux for the…
Semi-flexible polymers in crowded environments exhibit complex dynamics that play a crucial role in various biological and material design processes. Based on the classic reptation theory, it is generally believed that semiflexible polymers…
Recent experiments have demonstrated that the nonlinear elasticity of in vitro networks of the biopolymer actin is dramatically altered in the presence of a flexible cross-linker such as the abundant cytoskeletal protein filamin. The basic…
This work investigates the effects of tangent polar activity on the conformational and dynamic properties of entangled polymer melts through Langevin molecular dynamics simulations. We examine systems composed of all self-propelled,…
Active nematics are microscopically driven liquid crystals that exhibit dynamical steady states characterized by the creation and annihilation of topological defects. Motivated by experimental realizations of such systems made of biopolymer…
Free surfaces in glassy polymer films are known to induce surface mobile layers with enhanced dynamics. Using molecular dynamics simulations of a bead-spring model, we study a wide variety of layer-resolved structural and dynamical…
Though jamming transitions are long studied in condensed matter physics and granular systems, much less is known about active jamming (or unjamming), which commonly takes place in living materials. In this paper, we explore, by molecular…
Semiflexible polymers are ubiquitous in natural and artificial systems, where their intermediate rigidity gives rise to rich structural and dynamical behavior. Confinement plays a central role in these behaviors, as spatial restrictions can…
Biological locomotion in nature is often achieved by the interaction between a flexible body and its surrounding medium. The interaction of a flexible body with granular media is less understood compared with viscous fluids partially due to…
We perform Brownian dynamics simulations of active stiff polymers undergoing run-reverse dynamics, and so mimic bacterial swimming, in porous media. In accord with recent experiments of \emph{Escherichia coli}, the polymer dynamics are…
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…
The non-equilibrium structural and dynamical properties of a semiflexible polymer confined in a cylindrical microchannel and exposed to a Poiseuille flow is studied by mesoscale hydrodynamic simulations. For a polymer with a length half of…
Actuating periodically an elastic filament in a viscous liquid generally breaks the constraints of Purcell's scallop theorem, resulting in the generation of a net propulsive force. This observation suggests a method to design simple…
We study the dynamics of polymer chains in a bath of self-propelled particles (SPP) by extensive Langevin dynamics simulations in a two dimensional system. Specifically, we analyse the polymer looping properties versus the SPP activity and…
Experiments using nanofluidic devices have proven effective in characterizing the physical properties of polymers confined to small cavities. Two recent studies using such methods examined the organization and dynamics of two DNA molecules…
Entropy-driven directed translocation of a flexible polymer through a cone-shaped channel is studied theoretically and using computer simulation. For a given length of the channel, the effective force of entropic origin acting on the…
We explore the transport features of a single flexible polymer chain that walks on a periodic ratchet potential coupled with spatially varying temperature. At steady state the polymer exhibits a fast unidirectional motion where the…
This paper studies the features of a homopolymer translocating through a flexible pore. The channel is modeled as a monolayer tube composed by monomers with two elastic parameters: spring-like two body interaction and bending three body…
The dynamics of geometrically non-linear flexible filaments play an important role in a host of biological processes, from flagella-driven cell transport to the polymeric structure of complex fluids. Such problems have historically been…