No Arabic abstract
We study by Monte Carlo simulations a model of knotted polymer ring adsorbing onto an impenetrable, attractive wall. The polymer is described by a self-avoiding polygon (SAP) on the cubic lattice. We find that the adsorption transition temperature, the crossover exponent $phi$ and the metric exponent $ u$, are the same as in the model where the topology of the ring is unrestricted. By measuring the average length of the knotted portion of the ring we are able to show that adsorbed knots are localized. This knot localization transition is triggered by the adsorption transition but is accompanied by a less sharp variation of the exponent related to the degree of localization. Indeed, for a whole interval below the adsorption transition, one can not exclude a contiuous variation with temperature of this exponent. Deep into the adsorbed phase we are able to verify that knot localization is strong and well described in terms of the flat knot model.
We present the first experimental study on the simultaneous capillary instability amongst viscous concentric rings suspended atop an immiscible medium. The rings ruptured upon annealing, with three types of phase correlation between neighboring rings. In the case of weak substrate confinement, the rings ruptured independently when they were sparsely distanced, but via an out-of-phase mode when packed closer. If the substrate confinement was strong, the rings would rupture via an in-phase mode, resulting in radially aligned droplets. The concentric ring geometry caused a competition between the phase correlation of neighboring rings and the kinetically favorable wavelength, yielding an intriguing, recursive surface pattern. This frustrated pattern formation behavior was accounted for by a scaling analysis.
The force-assisted desorption kinetics of a macromolecule from adhesive surface is studied theoretically, using the notion of tensile (Pincus) blobs, as well as by means of Monte-Carlo (MC) and Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations. We show that the change of detached monomers with time is governed by a differential equation which is equivalent to the nonlinear porous medium equation (PME), employed widely in transport modeling of hydrogeological systems. Depending on the pulling force and the strength of adsorption, three kinetic regimes can be distinguished: (i) trumpet (weak adsorption and small pulling force), (ii) stem-trumpet (weak adsorption and moderate force), and (iii) stem (strong adsorption and large force). Interestingly, in all regimes the number of desorbed beads $M(t)$, and the height of the first monomer (which experiences a pulling force) $R(t)$ above the surface follow an universal square-root-of-time law. Consequently, the total time of detachment $<tau_d>$, scales with polymer length $N$ as $<tau_d> propto N^2$. Our main theoretical conclusions are tested and found in agreement with data from extensive MC- and MD-simulations.
The topological effects on the thermal properties of several knot configurations are investigated using Monte Carlo simulations. In order to check if the topology of the knots is preserved during the thermal fluctuations we propose a method that allows very fast calculations and can be easily applied to arbitrarily complex knots. As an application, the specific energy and heat capacity of the trefoil, the figure-eight and the $8_1$ knots are calculated at different temperatures and for different lengths. Short-range repulsive interactions between the monomers are assumed. The knots configurations are generated on a three-dimensional cubic lattice and sampled by means of the Wang-Landau algorithm and of the pivot method. The obtained results show that the topological effects play a key role for short-length polymers. Three temperature regimes of the growth rate of the internal energy of the system are distinguished.
We have performed magnetoresistance measurements on polyfluorene sandwich devices in weak magnetic fields as a function of applied voltage, device temperature (10K to 300K), film thickness and electrode materials. We observed either negative or positive magnetoresistance, dependent mostly on the applied voltage, with a typical magnitude of several percent. The shape of the magnetoresistance curve is characteristic of weak localization and antilocalization. Using weak localization theory, we find that the phase-breaking length is relatively large even at room temperature, and spin-orbit interaction is a function of the applied electric field.
We investigate, using numerical simulations, the conformations of isolated active ring polymers. We find that the their behaviour depends crucially on their size: short rings ($N lesssim$ 100) are swelled whereas longer rings ($N gtrsim$ 200) collapse, at sufficiently high activity. By investigating the non-equilibrium process leading to the steady state, we find a universal route driving both outcomes; we highlight the central role of steric interactions, at variance with linear chains, and of topology conservation. We further show that the collapsed rings are arrested by looking at different observables, all underlining the presence of an extremely long time scales at the steady state, associated with the internal dynamics of the collapsed section. Finally, we found that is some circumstances the collapsed state spins about its axis.