2007/10/31 by M. Tamm, M. V. Tamm, Sergei Nechaev +1
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Chemistry · Materials Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic physics #Block Copolymer Self-Assembly #Chain (unit) #Chemistry #Combinatorics #Crystallography #Distribution (mathematics) #Distribution function #Energy (signal processing) #Ground state #Mathematical analysis #Mathematics #Monomer #Nuclear magnetic resonance #Partition (number theory) #Physics #Polymer #Protein Structure and Dynamics #Quantum mechanics #State (computer science) #Theoretical and Computational Physics #Thermodynamics #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.78.011903
17 pages, 9 figures (some points are clarified)
openalex publication_date 2008/07/09 · arxiv created 2008/12/10 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We consider a pair of random heteropolymer chains with quenched primary sequences. For this system we have analyzed the dependence of average ground state energy per monomer E on chain length n in the ensemble of chains with uniform distribution of primary sequences of monomers. Every monomer of the first (second) chain is randomly and independently chosen with the uniform probability distribution p=1/c from a set of c different types A, B, C, D,... (A^\ensuremath', B^\ensuremath', C^\ensuremath', D^\ensuremath',…). Monomers of the first chain could form saturating reversible bonds with monomers of the second chain. The bonds between similar monomer types (such as A--A^\ensuremath', B--B^\ensuremath', C--C^\ensuremath', etc.) have the attraction energy u, while the bonds between different monomer types (such as A--B^\ensuremath', A--D^\ensuremath', B--D^\ensuremath', etc.) have the attraction energy v. The main attention is paid to the computation of the normalized free energy E(n) for intermediate chain lengths n and different ratios a=v/u at sufficiently low temperatures, when the entropic contribution of the loop formation is negligible compared to direct energetic interactions between chain monomers, and when the partition function of the chains is dominated by the ground state. The performed analysis allows one to derive the force f(x) which is necessary to apply for unzipping of two random heteropolymers of equal lengths whose ends are separated by the distance x, averaged over all equally distributed primary structures at low temperatures for fixed values a and c.