title: Different pathways in mechanical unfolding/folding cycle of a single semiflexible polymer.
abstract: Kinetics of conformational change of a semiflexible polymer under mechanical external field were investigated with Langevin dynamics simulations. It is found that a semiflexible polymer exhibits large hysteresis in mechanical folding/unfolding cycle even with a slow operation, whereas in a flexible polymer, the hysteresis almost disappears at a sufficiently slow operation. This suggests that the essential features of the structural transition of a semiflexible polymer should be interpreted at least on a two-dimensional phase space. The appearance of such large hysteresis is discussed in relation to different pathways in the loading and unloading processes. By using a minimal two-variable model, the hysteresis loop is described in terms of different pathways on the transition between two stable states.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Graduate School of Sciences, Kyoto University, 606-8502 Kyoto, Japan. yoshinaga@scphys.kyoto-u.ac.jp
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Yoshinaga
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yoshikawa
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ohta