Related papers: Single Chain Force Spectroscopy: Sequence Dependen…
We study the unfolding of a single polymer chain due to an external force. We use a simplified model which allows to perform all calculations in closed form without assuming a Boltzmann-Gibbs form for the equilibrium distribution.…
The mechanical properties of molecules are today captured by single molecule manipulation experiments, so that polymer features are tested at a nanometric scale. Yet devising mathematical models to get further insight beyond the commonly…
The stretching of a polymer chain by a large scale chaotic flow is considered. The steady state which emerges as a balance of the turbulent stretching and anharmonic resistance of the chain is quantitatively described, i.e. the dependency…
The conformations of interacting linear polymers on a dynamical planar random lattice are studied using a random two-matrix model. An exact expression for the partition function of self-avoiding chains subject to attractive contact…
Polyelectrolytes in poor solvents show a necklace structure where collapsed polymer pearls are linked to stretched strings. In the present paper the elasticity of such chains is studied in detail. Different deformation regimes are…
We study the swelling of a flexible linear chain composed of active particles by analytical theory and computer simulation. Three different situations are considered: a free chain, a chain confined to an external harmonic trap, and a chain…
While stretching of most polymer chains leads to rather featureless force-extension diagrams, some, notably DNA, exhibit non-trivial behavior with a distinct plateau region. Here we propose a unified theory that connects force-extension…
We have designed a new experimental setup able to investigate fracture of soft materials at small scales. At high crack velocity, where energy is mostly dissipated through viscoelastic processes, we observe an increasingly large high strain…
We study the effects of intrinsic sequence-dependent curvature for a two dimensional semiflexible biopolymer with short-range correlation in intrinsic curvatures. We show exactly that when not subjected to any external force, such a system…
Can active forces be exploited to drive the consistent collapse of an active polymer into a folded structure? In this paper we introduce and perform numerical simulations of a simple model of active colloidal folders, and show that a…
We study the elastic behaviour of a supercoiled DNA molecule. The simplest model is that of a rod like chain, involving two elastic constants, the bending and the twist rigidities. We show that this model is singular and needs a small…
Predicting the macroscopic mechanical behavior of polymeric materials from the micro-structural features has remained a challenge for decades. Existing theoretical models often fail to accurately capture the experimental data, due to…
The concept of local symmetry dynamics has recently been used to demonstrate the evolution of discrete symmetries in one-dimensional chains leading to emergent periodicity. Here we go one step further and show that the unboundedness of this…
A conceptual difficulty in the Hooke's-law description of ideal Gaussian polymer-chain elasticity is sometimes apparent in analyses of experimental data or in physical models designed to simulate the behavior of biopolymers. The problem,…
We propose the quantitative mean-field theory of mechanical unfolding of a globule formed by long flexible homopolymer chain collapsed in poor solvent and subjected to extensional deformation. We demonstrate that depending on the degree of…
We consider the rupture dynamics of a homopolymer chain pulled at one end at a constant loading rate. Our model of the breakable polymer is related to the Rouse chain, with the only difference that the interaction between the monomers is…
Protein sequences serve as a natural record of the evolutionary constraints that shape their functional structures. We show that it is possible to use only sequence information to go beyond predicting native structures and global stability…
We study the phase transitions of a random copolymer chain with quenched disorder. We apply a replica variational approach based on a Gaussian trial Hamiltonian in terms of the correlation functions of monomer Fourier coordinates. This…
This paper studies a polymer chain in the vicinity of a linear interface separating two immiscible solvents. The polymer consists of random monomer types, while the interface carries random charges. Both the monomer types and the charges…
This study reports a general scenario for the out-of-equilibrium features of collapsing polymeric architectures. We use molecular dynamics simulations to characterize the coarsening kinetics, in bad solvent, for several macromolecular…