Renormalisation group determination of the order of the DNA denaturation transition

Abstract

We report on the nature of the thermal denaturation transition of homogeneous DNA as determined from a renormalisation group analysis of the Peyrard-Bishop-Dauxois model. Our approach is based on an analogy with the phenomenon of critical wetting that goes further than previous qualitative comparisons, and shows that the transition is continuous for the average base-pair separation. However, since the range of universal critical behaviour appears to be very narrow, numerically observed denaturation transitions may look first-order, as it has been reported in the literature.

6 pages; no figures; to appear in Europhysics Letters

References in corpus (7)

• Dynamical model based on finite stacking enthalpies for homogeneous and inhomogeneous DNA thermal denaturation
• Path Integral Method for DNA Denaturation
• Statistical physics of the melting of inhomogeneous DNA
• Dynamical versus statistical mesoscopic models for DNA denaturation
• Simplified Langevin approach to the Peyrard-Bishop-Dauxois model of DNA
• On scaling laws at the phase transition of systems with divergent order parameter and/or internal length : the example of DNA denaturation
• Controlling the order of wedge filling transitions: the role of line tension

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Thermodynamics of Twisted DNA with Solvent Interaction
• Thermal and mechanical properties of a DNA model with solvation barrier
• Stacking Interactions in Denaturation of DNA Fragments
• Twist versus Nonlinear Stacking in Short DNA Molecules
• Anharmonic stacking in supercoiled DNA
• Mesoscopic helical models for DNA