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Landau Theory and the Emergence of Chirality in Viral Capsids

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 نشر من قبل Sanjay Dharmavaram
 تاريخ النشر 2016
  مجال البحث فيزياء
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We present a generalized Landau-Brazovskii theory for the solidification of chiral molecules on a spherical surface. With increasing sphere radius one encounters first intervals where robust achiral density modulations appear with icosahedral symmetry via first-order transitions. Next, one en- counters intervals where fragile but stable icosahedral structures still can be constructed but only by superposition of multiple irreducible representations. Chiral icoshedral structures appear via continuous or very weakly first-order transitions. Outside these parameter intervals, icosahedral symmetry is broken along a three-fold axis or a five-fold axis. The predictions of the theory are compared with recent numerical simulations.

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