Related papers: Cyclization of a Polymer: A First Passage Problem …
We study the sum of first passage times along an arbitrary cycle made up of N>2 states of a small physical system. We show that, if the system is at thermodynamic equilibrium, this sum follows the same probability distribution regardless of…
We present a general formalism able to derive the kinetic equations of polymer dynamics. It is based on the application of nonequilibrium thermodynamics to analyze the irreversible processes taking place in the conformational space of the…
In this paper we consider in detail the connection between the problem of a polymer in a random medium and that of a quantum particle in a random potential. We are interested in a system of finite volume where the polymer is known to be…
Recent theoretical modeling offers a unified picture for the description of stochastic processes characterized by a crossover from anomalous to normal behavior. This is particularly welcome, as a growing number of experiments suggest the…
We investigate theoretically a diffusion-limited reaction between a reactant attached to a Rouse polymer and an external fixed reactive site in confinement. The present work completes and goes beyond a previous study [T. Gu\'erin, O.…
We show that non-entangled polymers display an elastic-like behaviour at a macroscopic scale (probed at some 0.100 mm thickness) up to at least hundred degrees above the glass transition temperature. This observation, found under…
We discuss the structure of the equation of motion that governs nucleation processes at first order phase transitions. From the underlying microscopic dynamics of a nucleating system, we derive by means of a non-equilibrium projection…
The investigation of freezing transitions of single polymers is computationally demanding, since surface effects dominate the nucleation process. In recent studies we have systematically shown that the freezing properties of flexible,…
Most of the theoretical models describing the translocation of a polymer chain through a nanopore use the hypothesis that the polymer is always relaxed during the complete process. In other words, models generally assume that the…
The non-linear response of entangled polymers to shear flow is complicated. Its current understanding is framed mainly as a rheological description in terms of the complex viscosity. However, the full picture requires an assessment of the…
We consider the escape of a flexible, self-avoiding polymer chain out of a confined geometry. By means of simulations, we demonstrate that the translocation time can be described by a simple scaling law that exhibits a nonlinear dependence…
Applications of first passage times in stochastic processes arise across a wide range of length and time scales in biological settings. After an initial technical overview, we survey representative applications and their corresponding…
We study the long-time behaviour of a nonlinear Fokker-Planck equation, which models the evolution of rigid polymers in a given flow, after a closure approximation. The aim of this work is twofold: first, we propose a microscopic derivation…
Translocation of a polymer out of curved surface or membrane is studied via mean first passage time approach. Membrane curvature gives rise to a constraint on polymer conformation, which effectively drives the polymer to the outside of…
The cavitation flow of linear-polymer solutions around a cylinder is studied by performing a large-scale molecular dynamics simulation. The addition of polymer chains remarkably suppresses the cavitation. The polymers are stretched into a…
We study the translocation of polymers across varying-section channels. Using systematic approximations, we derive a simplified model that reduces the problem of polymer translocation through varying-section channels to that of a point-like…
We investigated the Karman vortex behind a circular cylinder in a polymer solution by a molecular dynamics simulation. The vortex characteristics are distinctly different for short and long polymers. The solution with the long polymer…
Polymers consisting of more than one type of monomer, known as copolymers, are vital to both living and synthetic systems. Copolymerisation has been studied theoretically in a number of contexts, often by considering a Markov process in…
Concentration invariance of cyclic species in the irreversible polymerization is examined. The simulation shows that the invariance theorem holds in good approximation for the irreversible process also. The physical soundness of the…
A deterministic mathematical model for the polymerization of hyperbranched molecules accounting for substitution, cyclization, and shielding effect has been developed as a system of nonlinear population balances. The solution obtained by a…