Different pathways in mechanical unfolding/folding cycle of a single semiflexible polymer

Abstract

Kinetics of conformational change of a semiflexible polymer under mechanical external field were investigated with Langevin dynamics simulations. It is found that a semiflexible polymer exhibits large hysteresis in mechanical folding/unfolding cycle even with a slow operation, whereas in a flexible polymer, the hysteresis almost disappears at a sufficiently slow operation. This suggests that the essential features of the structural transition of a semiflexible polymer should be interpreted at least on a two-dimensional phase space. The appearance of such large hysteresis is discussed in relation to different pathways in the loading and unloading processes. By using a minimal two-variable model, the hysteresis loop is described in terms of different pathways on the transition between two stable states.

19 pages, 5 figures

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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Folding and unfolding kinetics of a single semiflexible polymer
• Tension Dynamics and Linear Viscoelastic Behavior of a Single Semiflexible Polymer Chain
• Core-shell structures in single flexible-semiflexible block copolymers: Finding the free energy minimum for the folding transition
• Ribbon polymers in poor solvents: layering transitions in annular and tubular condensates