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http://hdl.handle.net/2289/4546| Title: | Biopolymer elasticity: Mechanics and thermal fluctuations |
| Authors: | Sinha, Supurna Samuel, J. |
| Issue Date: | Apr-2012 |
| Publisher: | American Physical Society |
| Citation: | Physical Review E, 2012, Vol.85, p041802 |
| Abstract: | We present an analytical study of the role of thermal fluctuations in shaping molecular elastic properties of semiflexible polymers. Our study interpolates between mechanics and statistical mechanics in a controlled way and shows how thermal fluctuations modify the elastic properties of biopolymers. We present a study of the minimum-energy configurations with explicit expressions for their energy and writhe and plots of the extension versus link for these configurations and a study of fluctuations around the local minima of energy and approximate analytical formulas for the free energy of stretched twisted polymers. The central result of our study is a closed-form expression for the leading thermal fluctuation correction to the free energy around the nonperturbative writhing family solution for the configuration of a biopolymer. From the derived formulas, the predictions of the wormlike chain model for molecular elasticity can be worked out for a comparison against numerical simulations and experiments. |
| Description: | Open Access |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/2289/4546 |
| ISSN: | 1539-3755 1550-2376 (Online) |
| Alternative Location: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.85.041802 http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012PhRvE..85d1802S |
| Copyright: | 2012 The American Physical Society |
| Appears in Collections: | Research Papers (TP) |
Files in This Item:
| File | Description | Size | Format | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012_PRE_V85_p041802.pdf | Open Access. | 410.89 kB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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