Related papers: A Model Ground State of Polyampholytes
We present a detailed study of the static and dynamic behavior of long semiflexible polymer chains in a melt. Starting from previously obtained fully equilibrated high molecular weight polymer melts [{\it Zhang et al.} ACS Macro Lett. 3,…
The freely rotating chain is one of the classic discrete models of a polymer in dilute solution. It consists of a broken line of N straight segments of fixed length such that the angle between adjacent segments is constant and the N-1…
Herein, we describe new methods to produce colloidal particle chains of three stiffness regimes that can be observed on a single-particle level, that is, on the level of the monomers that make up the chain; the chains can even be observed…
We consider a ${\rm A}_m{\rm B}_n$ diblock copolymer, whose links are capable of forming local reversible bonds with each other. We assume that the resulting structure of the bonds is RNA--like, i.e. topologically isomorphic to a tree. We…
Using a continuum description, we account for fluctuations in the ionic solvent surrounding a Gaussian, charged chain and derive an effective short-ranged potential between the charges on the chain. This potential is repulsive at short…
Semiflexible polymer models are widely used as a paradigm to understand structural phases in biomolecules including folding of proteins. Since stable knots are not so common in real proteins, the existence of stable knots in semiflexible…
The ground state of interacting particles on a disordered one-dimensional host-lattice is studied by a direct numerical method. It is shown that if the concentration of particles is small, then even a weak disorder of the host-lattice…
A polymer chain confined in nano-scale geometry has been used to investigate the underlying mechanism of Nuclear Pore Complex (NPC), where transport of cargoes is directional. It was shown here that depending on the solvent quality (good or…
The competition between toroidal and rod-like conformations as possible ground states for DNA condensation is studied as a function of the stiffness, the length of the DNA and the form of the long-range interactions between neighboring…
We present Monte Carlo simulations of a coarse-grained model for Langmuir monolayers of amphiphile molecules on a polar substrate. The molecules are modelled as chains of Lennard-Jones beads, with one slightly larger end bead confined in a…
Many variants of RNA, DNA, and even proteins can be considered semiflexible polymers, where bending stiffness, as a type of energetic penalty, competes with attractive van der Waals forces in structure formation processes. Here, we…
We study the effect of the presence of a regular substrate pattern on the irreversible adsorption of nanosized and colloid particles. Deposition of disks of radius $r_0$ is considered, with the allowed regions for their center attachment at…
Two types of average structures of a single knotted ring polymer are studied by Brownian dynamics simulations. For a ring polymer with N segments, its structure is represented by a 3N -dimensional conformation vector consisting of the…
Based on classical nucleation theory, we propose a couple of theoretical models for the nucleation of polymer crystallization, i.e. one for a single chain system (Model S) and the other for a multi-chain system (Model M). In these models,…
Chain molecules play important roles in industry and in living cells. Our focus here is on distinct ways of modeling the stiffness inherent in a chain molecule. We consider three types of stiffnesses -- one yielding an energy penalty for…
The conformation of polyelectrolytes in the solution state has long been of interest in polymer science. Herein we utilize all atom molecular dynamics simulations (MD) and small-angle x-ray scattering experiments (SAXS) to elucidate the…
Patchy colloidal platelets with convex, non-spherical shapes have been realized with different materials at length scales ranging from nanometers to microns. While the assembly of these hard shapes tends to maximize edge-to-edge contacts,…
We study the Brownian dynamics of flexible and semiflexible polymer chains densely grafted on a flat substrate, upon rapid quenching of the system when the quality of solvent becomes poor and chains attempt collapse into a globular state.…
Semiflexible polymers in poor solvents exhibit a rich variety of collapsed morphologies, including globules, toroids, and rodlike bundles, arising from the competition between attractive interactions and chain stiffness. Computer…
The zig-zag Nitrogen (N) chain similar to the Ch-N structure has long been considered a potential high energy density structure. However, all previously predicted zig-zag N chain structures similar to Ch-N exhibit imaginary frequencies in…