Effect of bending rigidity on the knotting of a polymer under tension
arXiv:1211.1879 · doi:10.1021/mz300493d
Abstract
A coarse-grained computational model is used to investigate how the bending rigidity of a polymer under tension affects the formation of a trefoil knot. Thermodynamic integration techniques are applied to demonstrate that the free-energy cost of forming a knot has a minimum at non-zero bending rigidity. The position of the minimum exhibits a power-law dependence on the applied tension. For knotted polymers with non-uniform bending rigidity, the knots preferentially localize in the region with a bending rigidity that minimizes the free-energy.
15 pages, 6 figures. Corrected problem with references to equations
References in corpus (2)
Cited by in corpus (7)
- Spontaneous knotting and unknotting of flexible linear polymers: equilibrium and kinetic aspects
- Influence of Rigidity and Knot Complexity on the Knotting of Confined Polymers
- Dynamics and Topology of Flexible Chains: Knots in Steady Shear Flows
- Machine learning understands knotted polymers
- Knotted globular ring polymers: how topology affects statistics and thermodynamics
- Compression of a confined semiflexible polymer under direct and oscillating fields
- Free Energy of a Knotted Polymer Confined to Narrow Cylindrical and Conical Channels