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It has been established that the entangled polymer dynamics can be reasonably described by single chain models such as tube and slip-link models. Although the entanglement effect is a result of the hard-core interaction between chains,…
In the first part of this work a summary is provided of some recent experiments and theoretical results which are relevant in the research of systems of polymer rings in nontrivial topological conformations. Next, some advances in modeling…
Assuming Gaussian chain statistics along the chain contour, we generate by means of a proper fractal generator hyperbranched polymer trees which are marginally compact. Static and dynamical properties, such as the radial intrachain pair…
One of the most challenging problems in polymer physics is providing a theoretical description for the behaviour of rings in dense solutions and melts. Although it is nowadays well established that the overall size of a ring in these…
We study the scaling properties of forced folding of thin materials of different geometry. The scaling relations implying the topological crossovers from the folding of threedimensional plates to the folding of two-dimensional sheets, and…
The results obtained from molecular dynamics simulations of the friction at an interface between polymer melts and weakly attractive crystalline surfaces are reported. We consider a coarse-grained bead-spring model of linear chains with…
We present a loop-opening model that accounts for the molecular details of the intrinsic fracture energy for fracturing polymer networks. This model includes not only the energy released from the scission of bridging chains but also the…
We study the equilibrium properties of a single flexible homopolymers where consecutive monomers are represented by impenetrable hard spherical beads tangential to each other, and non-consecutive monomers interact via a square-well…
We calculate the free energy and the pressure of a weakly slip-linked Gaussian polymer chains. We show that the equilibrium statistics of a slip-linked system is different from one of the corresponding ideal chain system without any…
We report that a dielectric polymer chain, constrained at both ends, sharply collapses when exposed to a high electric field. The chain collapse is driven by nonlocal dipolar interactions and anisotropic polarization of monomers, a…
The slip phenomena in thin polymer films confined by either flat or periodically corrugated surfaces are investigated by molecular dynamics and continuum simulations. For atomically flat surfaces and weak wall-fluid interactions, the shear…
We compare Monte Carlo simulations of knotted and unknotted polymers whose ends are connected to two parallel walls. The force $f$ exerted on the polymer is measured as a function of the separation $R$ between the walls. For unknotted…
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…
We develop topological methods for characterizing the relationship between polymer chain entanglement and bulk viscoelastic responses. We introduce generalized Linking Number and Writhe characteristics that are applicable to open linear…
The entropic force exerted by the Brownian fluctuations of a grafted semiflexible polymer upon a rigid smooth wall are calculated both analytically and by Monte Carlo simulations. Such forces are thought to play an important role for…
Random heteropolymers are a minimal description of biopolymers and can provide a theoretical framework to the investigate the formation of loops in biophysical experiments. A two--state model provides a consistent and robust way to study…
The statistics of polymers advected by a turbulent flow are investigated. To limit the polymer lengths above to coil-stretch transition, a FENE-P type relaxation law is used. The turbulence is modeled by a random strain, delta-correlated in…
A microscopic model of a surface polymer network - membrane system is introduced, with contact polymer surface interactions that can be either repulsive or attractive and sliplinks of functionality four randomly distributed over the…
It is common to study polymer physics through the use of idealized single-chain models, and the most popular of these is the freely jointed chain model. In certain thermodynamic ensembles, statistical mechanical treatment of this model is…
We investigate the crystallization of a single, flexible homopolymer chain using transition path sampling (TPS). The chain consists of N identical spherical monomers evolved according to Langevin dynamics. While neighboring monomers are…