Pulling knotted polymers

O. Farago, Y. Kantor, M. Kardar

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

74 Scopus citations

Abstract

We compare Monte Carlo simulations of knotted and unknotted polymers whose ends are connected to two parallel walls. The force f exerted on the polymer is measured as a function of the separation R between the walls. For unknotted polymers of several monomer numbers N, the product fNν is a simple function of R/Nν, where ν ≃ 0.59. By contrast, knotted polymers exhibit strong finite-size effects which can be interpreted in terms of a new length scale related to the size of the knot. Based on this interpretation, we conclude that the number of monomers forming the knot scales as Nt, with t = 0.4 ± 0.1.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)53-59
Number of pages7
JournalEPL
Volume60
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Oct 2002
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Physics and Astronomy

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