Regensburg 2010 – scientific programme
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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik
DY 12: Soft Matter I
DY 12.5: Talk
Tuesday, March 23, 2010, 15:30–15:45, H47
The Shape of a Polymer in a Crowded Environment — Viktoria Blavatska1, •Christian von Ferber2,3, and Yurij Holovatch1,4 — 1Institute for Condensed Matter Physics, Lviv, UA — 2Applied Mathematics Research Centre, Coventry University, UK — 3Physikalisches Institut, Universität Freiburg — 4Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Linz, AT
An environment with correlated obstacles may be used to model the crowded environment typically found in a biological cell. Does such a correlated environment change the universal conformations of a polymer in solution? We study the universal characteristics of the shape of a flexible polymer chain in an environment with correlated structural obstacles, with a power law decay x−a of the correlation. To determine the universal behaviour of the polymer shape we apply the field-theoretical renormalization group approach in d dimensions and use the technique of a double expansion in the parameters ε=4−d and δ=4−a. The scaling exponents for the polymer are shown to depend on the disorder correlation. Further we estimate universal shape ratios, in particular the size ratio of the end-to-end and gyration radii ⟨ Re2 ⟩/⟨ RG2 ⟩ as well as the averaged asphericity ratio A_d. The results show that the asymmetry of the polymer shape is increased in crowded correlated environments as compared to the pure solution case.