Mechanical denaturation of DNA: existence of a low temperature denaturation

Abstract

Recent theoretical predictions on DNA mechanical separation induced by pulling forces are numerically tested within a model in which self-avoidance for DNA strands is fully taken into account. DNA strands are described by interacting pairs of self avoiding walks (SAW) which are pulled apart by a force applied at the two extremities. The whole phase diagram is spanned by extensive Monte Carlo (MC) simulations and the existence of a low temperature denaturation is confirmed. The basic features of the phase diagram and the re-entrant phase boundary are also obtained with a simple heuristic argument based on an energy-entropy estimate.

14 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (1)

• Force and kinetic barriers in unzipping of DNA

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