Unexpected relaxation dynamics of a self-avoiding polymer in cylindrical confinement

Abstract

We report extensive simulations of the relaxation dynamics of a self-avoiding polymer confined inside a cylindrical pore. In particular, we concentrate on examining how confinement influences the scaling behavior of the global relaxation time of the chain, t, with the chain length N and pore diameter D. An earlier scaling analysis based on the de Gennes blob picture led to t ~ N^2D^(1/3). Our numerical effort that combines molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations, however, consistently produces different t-results for N up to 2000. We argue that the previous scaling prediction is only asymptotically valid in the limit N >> D^(5/3) >> 1, which is currently inaccessible to computer simulations and, more interestingly, is also difficult to reach in experiments. Our results are thus relevant for the interpretation of recent experiments with DNA in nano- and micro-channels.

10 pages, 11 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Time scale of entropic segregation of flexible polymers in confinement: Implications for chromosome segregation in filamentous bacteria
• The shape of a flexible polymer in a cylindrical pore
• Stretching Homopolymers
• The wormhole move: A new algorithm for polymer simulations

Cited by in corpus (8)

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• Scale-free Monte Carlo method for calculating the critical exponent $\gamma$ of self-avoiding walks
• Shapes of Semiflexible Polymers in Confined Spaces
• Segregation of Polymers in Confined Spaces
• Ejection dynamics of a ring polymer out of a nanochannel
• Bacterial chromosome organization II: few special cross-links, cell confinement, and molecular crowders play the pivotal roles
• Unexpected crossover dynamics of single polymer in a corrugated tube
• Entropic alignment of topologically modified ring polymers in cylindrical confinement