Helical structures from an isotropic homopolymer model
arXiv:cond-mat/0605246 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.207802
Abstract
We present Monte Carlo simulation results for square-well homopolymers at a series of bond lengths. Although the model contains only isotropic pairwise interactions, under appropriate conditions this system shows spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking, where the chain exists in either a left- or a right-handed helical structure. We investigate how this behavior depends upon the ratio between bond length and monomer radius.
10 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication by Physical Review Letters