Related papers: Physics of thick polymers
Thin liquid films on surfaces are part of our everyday life, they serve e.g. as coatings or lubricants. The stability of a thin layer is governed by interfacial forces, described by the effective interface potential, and has been subject of…
Generalized-ensemble simulations enable the study of complex adsorption scenarios of a coarse-grained model polymer near an attractive nanostring, representing an ultrathin nanowire. We perform canonical and microcanonical statistical…
These lecture notes are a guided tour through the fascinating world of polymer chains interacting with themselves and/or with their environment. The focus is on the mathematical description of a number of physical and chemical phenomena,…
We study the dynamics of a single chain polymer confined to a two dimensional cell. We introduce a kinetically constrained lattice gas model that preserves the connectivity of the chain, and we use this kinetically constrained model to…
Partitioning of (bio)materials in polymeric mixtures is a key phenomenon both in cellular environments, as well as in industrial applications. In cells, several macromolecules are suspended within different biomolecular phases. On the other…
We study the dynamics of polymer chains in a bath of self-propelled particles (SPP) by extensive Langevin dynamics simulations in a two dimensional system. Specifically, we analyse the polymer looping properties versus the SPP activity and…
Recently it has been shown that a two-dimensional model of self-attracting polymers based on attracting segments displays two phase transitions, a theta-like collapse between swollen polymers and a globular state and another between the…
We describe some recent results concerning the statistical properties of a self-interacting polymer stretched by an external force. We concentrate mainly on the cases of purely attractive or purely repulsive self-interactions, but our…
We investigate the conformations of a semiflexible polymer confined to a square box. Results of Monte Carlo simulations show the existence of a shape transition when the persistence length of the polymer becomes comparable to the dimensions…
Periodically sheared colloids at low densities demonstrate a dynamical phase transition from an inactive to active phase as the strain amplitude is increased. The inactive phase consists of no collisions/contacts between particles in the…
The breakage of a polymer chain of segments, coupled by anharmonic bonds with applied constant external tensile force is studied by means of Molecular Dynamics simulation. We show that the mean life time of the chain becomes progressively…
Using a theoretical model we show that ideal ring polymers are stronger depletants than ideal linear polymers of equal radii of gyration, but not of equal hydrodynamic radii. The difference in the depletion-induced force profile is largely…
Protein aggregation in cell membrane is vital for the majority of biological functions. Recent experimental results suggest that transmembrane domains of proteins such as $\alpha$-helices and $\beta$-sheets have different structural…
In biology, there are several processes in which unfolded protein chains are transported along narrow-tube channels. Normally, without such a severe configurational constraint, unfolded polypeptides would not bind to each other. However,…
A simple and predictive model is put forward explaining the experimentally observed substantial shift of the glass transition temperature, Tg, of sufficiently thin polymer films. It focuses on the limit of small molecular weight, where…
Soft particles such as microgels and core-shell particles can undergo significant and anisotropic deformations when adsorbed to a liquid interface. This, in turn, leads to a complex phase behavior upon compression. Here we develop a…
There are many proteins or protein complexes which have multiple DNA binding domains. This allows them to bind to multiple points on a DNA molecule (or chromatin fibre) at the same time. There are also many proteins which have been found to…
A living polymers transition is found in molecular dynamics simulations of a charge-symmetric size-asymmetric electrolyte with no anisotropic interactions. The fluid has strong polymeric character at low temperatures, where it consists of…
Phase separation has emerged as an essential concept for the spatial organization inside biological cells. However, despite the clear relevance to virtually all physiological functions, we understand surprisingly little about what phases…
We use Brownian dynamics simulations and advanced topological profiling methods to characterize the out-of-equilibrium evolution of self-entanglement in linear polymers confined into nano-channels and under periodic compression. We…