Related papers: Inferring the diameter of a biopolymer from its st…
The structural properties of a linear polymer and its evolution in time have a strong bearing on its anisotropic stress response. The mean-square bond length and mean bond angle are the critical parameters that influence the time-varying…
We study the mechanical properties of semiflexible polymers when the contour length of the polymer is comparable to its persistence length. We compute the exact average end-to-end distance and shape of the polymer for different boundary…
Although the stretching of polymers and biomolecules is important in numerous settings, their response when confined to two-dimensions is relatively poorly-studied. In this paper, we derive closed-form analytical expressions for the…
We provide a unified theory for the high force elasticity of biopolymers solely in terms of the persistence length, $\xi_p$, and the monomer spacing, $a$. When the force $f>\fh \sim k_BT\xi_p/a^2$ the biopolymers behave as Freely Jointed…
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 shape of a polymer plays an important role in determining its interactions with other molecules and with the environment, and is in turn affected by both of them. As a consequence, in the literature the shape properties of a chain in…
In this paper we compare two polymer stretching experiments. The outcome of both experiments is a force-extension relation. We use a one-dimensional model to show that in general the two quantities are not equal. In certain limits, however,…
We compare the Rubinstein-Duke model for reptation to a model where the boundary dynamics is modified by calculating the viscosity of polymer melts. The question is investigated whether the viscosity is determined by details of the dynamics…
By resorting to the thick-chain model we discuss how the stretching response of a polymer is influenced by the self-avoidance entailed by its finite thickness. The characterization of the force versus extension curve for a thick chain is…
We investigate extensional viscosity and polymer conformation in dilute polymer solutions under uniaxial extensional flow using dissipative particle dynamics simulations. At high extension rates, polymers are significantly stretched by…
Force versus extension curves measure entropic elasticity of single polymer chain in force spectroscopy experiments. A Worm-like Chain model is used to describe force extension experiments with an intrinsic chain parameter called…
The translocation of biopolymers, such as DNA and proteins, across cellular or nuclear membranes is essential for numerous biological processes. The translocation dynamics are influenced by the properties of the polymers, such as polymer…
A thermodynamically related model is developed for describing elastic rubber-like behavior of amorphous and crystallizing polymers and demonstrated on example of simple extension. Both the “entropic” and “energetic”…
Nanoscale and microscale confinement of biopolymers naturally occurs in cells and has been recently achieved in artificial structures designed for nanotechnological applications. Here, we present an extensive theoretical investigation of…
Entangled networks of stiff biopolymers exhibit complex dynamic response, emerging from the topological constraints that neighboring filaments impose upon each other. We propose a class of reference models for entanglement dynamics of stiff…
Polymer models play the special role of elucidating the elementary features describing the physics of long molecules and become essential to interpret the measurements of their magnitudes. In this work the end-to-end distance of an…
We study the influence of some quenched disorder in the sequence of monomers on the entropic elasticity of long polymeric chains. Starting from the Kratky-Porod model, we show numerically that some randomness in the favoured angles between…
Constitutive equations are derived for the viscoelastic response of rubbery polymers at finite strains. A polymer is thought of as a network of long chains connected to temporary junctions. At a random time, a chain detaches from a…
Using molecular dynamic simulation, we study the stretching of an adsorbed homopolymer in a poor solvent with one end held at a distance $z_e$ from the substrate. We measure the vertical force $f$ on the end of the chain as a function of…
When injected through a contraction, high molecular weight polymer solutions exhibit a sharp increase of apparent viscosity which originates from stretching polymer chains above a critical extension rate. This chain stretching can also…