Berlin 2008 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 19: Semiflexible Polymers and Networks
BP 19.8: Talk
Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 19:15–19:30, PC 203
Semiflexible chains in disordered media — •Abigail Klopper1, Sebastian Schoebl2, and Klaus Kroy2 — 1Max-Planck-Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme, Dresden — 2Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Leipzig, Leipzig
Cellular function is intimately connected with the mechanical and dynamical properties of an underlying cytoskeletal structure, which can be described as a random network of stiff polymers. One attempt to understand this relationship involves determining how these properties are influenced by the conformational statistics of single polymers within the network. This calls for shrewd modeling of the polymers’ immediate environment - capturing the spatial confinement caused by cellular crowding within a simplified theoretical framework. In this spirit, the problem may be recast in terms of a wormlike chain embedded within a matrix of quenched random obstacles. Despite the prolific attention paid to the analogous problem in flexible polymer networks in recent years, little is understood about how their stiffer counterparts respond to such an environment. This can be partly attributed to the difficulties encountered when stiffness and inextensibility criteria are imposed simultaneously with quenched disorder constraints. With the view to circumvent these problems, we use a weakly bending rod formalism and employ replica theory to calculate disorder-averaged equilibrium properties of a stiff biopolymer in a quenched random environment.