2000/10/31 by Yitzhak Rabin, Y. Rabin, Rabin, Y. +3
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Brake Systems and Friction Analysis #FOS: Physical sciences #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) #Tribology and Lubrication Engineering #cond-mat.soft #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/0010488
arxiv created 2000/10/31 · openalex publication_date 2000/10/31 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We study the effects of thermal fluctuations on a small elastic ring. We derive analytical expressions for the correlation functions of the Euler angles, for the real space two--point correlation functions and for the probability distribution of writhe, as a function of the persistence lengths that determine the rigidity with respect to bending and twist. Fluctuation amplitudes diverge in the limit of vanishing twist rigidity. There is crossover from a small scale regime in which twist and writhe modes are uncoupled, to a large scale regime in which twist affects the spatial configurations of the ring.