2001/05/05 by S. Panyukov, Sergey Panyukov, Panyukov, S. +3
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Materials and Mechanics #FOS: Physical sciences #Micro and Nano Robotics #Microtubule and mitosis dynamics #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) #cond-mat.soft #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/0105116
6 pages, 3 figures
arxiv created 2001/05/05 · openalex publication_date 2001/05/05 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
A theoretical analysis of the effect of force and torque on spontaneously twisted, fluctuating elastic ribbons is presented. We find that when a filament with a straight center line and a spontaneously twisted noncircular cross section is subjected to a sufficiently strong extensional force, its average elongation exhibits an asymmetric response to large over and undertwist. We construct the stability diagram that describes the buckling transition of such ribbons under the opposing action of force and torque and show that all the predicted behaviors can be understood in terms of continuous transformations between straight and spiral/helical states of the ribbon. The relation between our results and experimental observations on DNA is discussed and a new reentrant spiral to rod transition is predicted at intermediate values of twist rigidity and applied force.