Related papers: Statistical mechanics of double-helical polymers
We study the effects of chirality at the segment scale on the thermodynamics of block copolymer melts using self consistent field theory. In linear diblock melts where segments of one block prefer a twisted, or cholesteric, texture, we show…
A polymer-chain network is a collection of interconnected polymer-chains, made themselves of the repetition of a single pattern called a monomer. Our first main result establishes that, for a class of models for polymer-chain networks, the…
We experimentally investigate the statistical behaviour of a model two-dimensional granular system undergoing stationary sedimentation. Buoyant cylindrical particles are rotated in liquid-filled drum, thus confined in a harmonic centripetal…
Structures with artificial mechanical properties, often called mechanical metamaterials, exhibit divergent yet tunable performance. Various types of mechanical metamaterials have been proposed, which harness light or magnetic interactions,…
By high temperature series expansion, exact diagonalisation and temperature density-matrix renormalisation the magnetic susceptibility $\chi(T)$ and the specific heat $C(T)$ of dimerised and frustrated $S=1/2$ chains are computed. All three…
In order to study rheological properties of gelling systems in dilute solution, we investigate the viscosity and the normal stresses in the Zimm model for randomly crosslinked monomers. The distribution of cluster topologies and sizes is…
We analyze static properties of a strongly confined semiflexible polymer, i.e. either trapped in a closed space or compressed by external forces, in an athermal solvent. Like a flexible polymer case, we can resort to an analogy with the…
Polymeric materials that couple deformation and electrostatics have the potential for use in soft sensors and actuators with potential applications ranging from robotic, biomedical, energy, aerospace and automotive technologies. In contrast…
When a chiral isotropic elastomer is brought to low temperature cholesteric phase, the nematic degree of freedom tends to order and form a helix. Due to the nemato-elastic coupling, this also leads to elastic deformation of the polymer…
Helical motifs are ubiquitious in macromolecular systems. The mechanism of spontaneous emergence of helicity is unknown, especially in cases where torsional interactions are absent. Emergence of helical order needs coordinated organization…
Stress relaxation following deformation of an entangled polymeric liquid is thought to be affected by transient reforming of chain entanglements. In this work, we use single molecule techniques to study the relaxation of individual polymers…
A methodology for the statistical mechanical analysis of polymeric chains under tension introduced previously is extended to include torque. The response of individual bonds between monomers or of entire groups of monomers to a combination…
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…
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…
We consider crystal formation of particles with dipole-dipole interactions that are confined to move in a one-dimensional helical geometry with their dipole moments oriented along the symmetry axis of the confining helix. The stable…
We model the flow behaviour of dense melts of flexible and semiflexible ring polymers in the presence of walls using a hybrid multiscale approach. Specifically, we perform molecular dynamics simulations and apply the Irving-Kirkwood formula…
We analyze structural and conformational properties in a simulated bead-spring model of a non-entangled, supercooled polymer melt. We explore the statics of the model via various structure factors, involving not only the monomers, but also…
The low-energy physics of (quasi)degenerate one-dimensional systems is typically understood as the particle-like dynamics of kinks between stable, ordered structures. Such dynamics, we show, becomes highly non-trivial when the ground states…
We investigate the high-temperature behavior of the directed polymer model in dimension $1+2$. More precisely we study the difference $\Delta \mathtt{F}(\beta)$ between the quenched and annealed free energies for small values of the inverse…
We examine the effects of thermal fluctuations on thin elastic filaments with non-circular cross-section and arbitrary spontaneous curvature and torsion. Analytical expressions for orientational correlation functions and for the persistence…