Related papers: Entropic forces generated by grafted semiflexible …
Thermal fluctuations are not large enough to lead to state changes in granular materials. However, such materials do achieve reproducible bulk properties, suggesting that they are controlled by an underlying statistical mechanics analogous…
Forced desorption of a semiflexible polymer chain on a solid substrate is theoretically investigated. The pulling force versus displacement is studied for different adsorption energy and persistence length P. It is found that the…
Nano-scale confinement of polymer in cone-shaped geometries occurs in many experimental situations. A flexible polymer confined in a cone-shaped nano-channel is studied theoretically and using molecular dynamics simulations. Distribution of…
We study the model of a partially directed flexible or semi-flexible homopolymer on a square lattice, subject to an externally applied force, in a direction either parallel to, or perpendicular to the preferred direction. The polymer is…
We consider a model of an extensible semiflexible filament moving in two dimensions on a motility assay of motor proteins represented explicitly as active harmonic linkers. Their heads bind stochastically to polymer segments within a…
Filamentous cyanobacteria are one of the oldest and today still most abundant lifeforms on earth, with manifold implications in ecology and economics. Their flexible filaments, often several hundred cells long, exhibit gliding motility in…
Simple expressions for the bending and the base-stacking energy of double-stranded semiflexible biopolymers (such as DNA and actin) are derived. The distribution of the folding angle between the two strands is obtained by solving a…
Crumpled paper or drapery patterns are everyday examples of how elastic sheets can respond to external forcing. In this Letter, we study experimentally a novel sort of forcing. We consider a circular flexible plate clamped at its center and…
We discuss the fluctuation-induced force, a finite-temperature analog of the Casimir force, between two inclusions embedded in a fluid membrane under tension. We suggest a method to calculate this Casimir interaction in the most general…
Mechanically induced protein unfolding in the force-clamp apparatus is shown, in a coarse-grained model of ubiquitin, to have lognormal statistics above a treshold force and exponential below it. Correspondingly, the mean unfolding time is…
A number of strange results have been reported for the twist elasticity of a semiflexible filament, actin. In particular dynamic and static methods for determining the torsional twist modulus give very different results. I show here that…
We study the activated motion of adsorbed polymers which are driven over a structured substrate by a localized point force.Our theory applies to experiments with single polymers using, for example, tips of scanning force microscopes to drag…
Recent Monte Carlo simulations of a grafted semiflexible polymer in 1+1 dimensions have revealed a pronounced bimodal structure in the probability distribution of the transverse (bending) fluctuations of the free end, when the total contour…
By means of multicanonical computer simulations, we investigate thermodynamic properties of the aggregation of interacting semiflexible polymers. We analyze a mesoscopic bead-stick model, where nonbonded monomers interact via Lennard-Jones…
We derive the Frank elastic constants for nematic solutions of semiflexible polymers. We plot these results as a function of the coarse-grained Maier-Saupe quadrupole aligning strength and polymer stiffness ranging from rigid to highly…
We characterize the fluctuation properties of a polymer chain under external tension and the fluctuation-induced forces between two ring molecules threaded around the chain. The problem is relevant in the context of fluctuation-induced…
We study the unfolding of a single polymer chain due to an external force. We use a simplified model which allows to perform all calculations in closed form without assuming a Boltzmann-Gibbs form for the equilibrium distribution.…
We solve a model that takes into account entropic barriers, frustration, and the organization of a protein-like molecule. For a chain of size $M$, there is an effective folding transition to an ordered structure. Without frustration, this…
The equilibrium structure and dynamics of a single polymer chain in a thermal solvent is by now well-understood in terms of scaling laws. Here we consider a polymer in a bacterial bath, i.e. in a solvent consisting of active particles which…
An earlier four-loop calculation of the fluctuation pressure of a fluid membrane between two infinite walls is extended to five loops. Variational perturbation theory is used to extract the hard-wall limit from perturbative results obtained…