2020/04/21 by Giovanni Dietler, Robert Kusner, Dietler, Giovanni +7
Physics and Astronomy · #Biological Physics (physics.bio-ph) #FOS: Mathematics #FOS: Physical sciences #Geometric Topology (math.GT) #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Metric Geometry (math.MG) #Origins and Evolution of Life #Planetary Science and Exploration #Scientific Research and Discoveries #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2004.10338
openalex publication_date 2020/04/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Chiral objects rotate when placed in a collimated flow or wind. We exploit this hydrodynamic intuition to construct a tensorial chirality measure for rigid filaments and curves. This tensor is trace-free, so if a curve has a right-handed twist about some axis, there is a perpendicular axis about which the twist is left-handed. Our measure places minimal requirements on the smoothness of the curve, hence it can be readily used to quantify chirality for biomolecules and polymers, polygonal and rectifiable curves, and other discrete geometrical structures.