Dresden 2006 – scientific programme

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AKB: Biologische Physik

AKB 15: Biopolymers II

AKB 15.3: Talk

Tuesday, March 28, 2006, 17:00–17:15, ZEU 260

Dynamics of single semiflexible polymers under force — •Benedikt Obermayer¹, Oskar Hallatschek², Klaus Kroy¹, and Erwin Frey³ — ¹Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Leipzig, Augustusplatz 10-11, 04109 Leipzig — ²Lyman Laboratory of Physics 426, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 — ³Arnold Sommerfeld Center for Theoretical Physics, LMU München, Theresienstr. 37, 80333 München

The wormlike chain model gives an accurate theoretical description for many important semiflexible biopolymers. While their static equilibrium properties are well known, the dynamics under external forces is not yet completely understood. We have analyzed the response to forces acting in longitudinal and transverse direction for single chains under thermal conditions in the weakly-bending limit. Since the longitudinal dynamics is closely related to backbone tension, a unified description of its propagation and relaxation behavior provides both a rigorous formalism as well as an intuitive understanding of the dominant relaxation mechanisms; hence we can systematically substantiate and restrict previous heuristic approaches. We present our results in terms of asymptotic scaling laws and by means of crossover solutions computed numerically, and we point out experimental implications.